Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promises unprecedented economic measures and a blockade of Iranian ports as $4 gas and $80 oil collide with the midterms, and Erick Erickson says the hard part out loud: we are losing a war against a country we could beat because there was never a plan. Then the case Republicans do not want to hear, that Ken Paxton is lazy, corrupt, and putting Texas in play for James Talarico, with Mark Halperin agreeing on tape. Plus Max Miller in Ohio, Cory Mills and Ron DeSantis in Florida, Mike Collins in Georgia, and Abdul El-Sayed's Detroit animal shelter record in Michigan.

• Scott Bessent's Iranian port blockade and sanctions, the Strait of Hormuz, and the highest pre-election August gas prices on record
• Why the Pentagon never sent the demand signal for missile production, Admiral Cooper's stop and start problem, and the drones and F-5s Iran actually got through
• Ken Paxton versus James Talarico in Texas, the donor class walking away, and Mark Halperin's warning that Paxton loses if nothing changes
• Herschel Walker, Mike Collins, Max Miller, and Cory Mills: how the GOP keeps nominating its weakest links while Democrats force theirs out
• Abdul El-Sayed, Sharia and dogs, and the 74 percent kill rate at Detroit's animal shelter, plus Luigi Mangione's admission in the Brian Thompson murder

1. Trump Rolls Back a Burdensome Business Registry
   Erick Erickson explains why the Trump administration is eliminating a federal reporting requirement that forced small-business owners to surrender sensitive personal and financial information.

2. USS Abraham Lincoln Returns Amid Pentagon Scrutiny
   As the aircraft carrier returns from the Middle East, Erick examines allegations about conditions aboard the ship, the Pentagon's credibility problems and its strained relationship with the press.

3. The Luigi Mangione Case Confronts Conspiracy Culture
   Luigi Mangione's reported admission in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson exposes how political tribalism and online influencers encourage people to reject inconvenient facts.

4. Finding Hope by Living in the Present
   Amid growing pessimism about America's future, Erick offers a reminder that neither nostalgia nor anxiety should keep people from recognizing God's blessings in the present.

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Erick Erickson wades into the fight between Ben Shapiro and the Federalist's John Daniel Davidson over whether the American dream still works, and answers with a date: ten years ago his wife would be dead, because the lung cancer treatment that saved her did not exist yet. Using C.S. Lewis and the fifteenth Screwtape letter, he takes apart the professional pessimism spreading across the online right and makes the case for contentment. Then CNN's Harry Enten says he is running scared for Republicans as Democratic primary turnout blows past 25 million, and Erick argues over whether culture or the economy decides November, from Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan to Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota and Ken Paxton in Texas.

• Ben Shapiro versus John Daniel Davidson on whether hard work and virtue still pay off, and Erick's precise rebuttal: his wife's lung cancer drug, next day delivery, the end of Roe v. Wade, and the Supreme Court on trans care for minors
• C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, and the fifteenth letter: why idealizing the past or fearing the future makes idols, why misery is increasingly a choice, and why contentment is the answer
• Harry Enten's CNN data: over 25 million Democratic primary votes so far, ahead of 2018, against a Michigan Senate poll that is the weakest Democratic showing of the century
• Culture versus the economy in November: Mike Rogers versus Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Peggy Flanagan's ICE answer in Minnesota, Ken Paxton's character problem in Texas, and why Erick thinks the GOP is making a bad gamble
• Callers on populism versus conservatism, a Star Trek fan page turning on Noa Tishby while a barbecue board showed nothing but love, and a gearhead's case against letting Washington design Detroit's cars

Stacey Abrams sits down with Kamala Harris and declares that the South has lived under soft authoritarianism since 1776 and that America has backdoored its way to a new Jim Crow, and Erick Erickson, who served on the city council in Macon, Georgia, answers with the Jim Crow signage still hanging in his city's terminal station and the people who actually want it kept up. From there he reads his "trust fund commies" piece in full, the argument that from Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx to Fidel Castro, Xi Jinping, Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner, socialism has always been the insurance policy of the well born against the creative destruction of a free market. Plus a caller on conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and why Luigi Mangione's zealous defense and life sentence prove the system worked.

• Stacey Abrams and Kamala Harris on "soft authoritarianism" in the South, Georgia's voter ID law she called Jim Crow 2.0, and the black voter turnout that went up instead of down
• Macon's terminal station and its whites only water fountains: why northern transplants want the signs torn down and native black residents want them kept
• Luxury beliefs and the harm they do: defunding the police, blocking school choice, decriminalized drug use, and a near wreck with a driver high on marijuana on Erick's morning commute
• The trust fund commies essay: Friedrich Engels' textile mill, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, Xi Jinping's princelings, Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction, Zohran Mamdani, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, and Graham Platner's oysterman cosplay
• Roy in Jacksonville on the USS Abraham Lincoln, a Pentagon that has not been candid about Iran, and George on Luigi Mangione's guilty plea, the border wall, and why defense lawyers deserve respect

Erick opens on the Wall Street Journal's tariff refund story (over 40 S&P 500 companies reporting some $9.6 billion, with Apple near $2.2 billion, Nike at $986 million, FedEx at $800 million, Amazon at $640 million, and GM at $500 million after the Supreme Court struck the tariffs) and skewers the populists who swore tariffs would not raise prices yet now demand a cut of the refunds. He then turns to the Tyler Robinson trial in the Charlie Kirk assassination, the Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson conspiracy theories, and the debunked Anthony Fauci mRNA miscarriage claim, arguing that information overload is pulling Americans away from reality itself and undermining the truth claims, most of all the resurrection, that society needs to survive.

• Tariff refunds pour into Apple, Nike, FedEx, Amazon, and GM; Erick's warning to the Fortune 500 to raise wages and reinvest or face bipartisan backlash
• Why prices rose less than feared because companies held back wages and investment, and how populist economics runs on emotion, not coherent policy (the $20 burrito, the cheaper Chipotle, "expensive toasters")
• Data centers and AI: Mark Zuckerberg, Mike Rowe, and a saved Washington State town versus Anthropic's Dario Amodei doom messaging, plus Flock camera CEO Garrett's new data limits
• The Tyler Robinson trial, Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, and the "it was the Jews" conspiracy, alongside the transgender-shooter pattern the theorists ignore
• Anthony Fauci and the debunked COVID vaccine miscarriage claim, the DSA and PSL socialism clip on canceling mortgages, and Erick's faith close on truth, reality, and not fearing tomorrow

Erick argues that precedent matters, tracing how Democrats spent decades using lawsuits and court settlements (California's Proposition 8, the state's refusal to defend it, Bill Clinton's illegal immigration consent decree, and Anthony Kennedy's Obergefell ruling) to bind future governments, and how the Trump Justice Department has now learned the same trick by declining to appeal Judge James Wesley Hendricks' Northern District of Texas ruling that struck down the National Firearms Act permit and $200 tax on suppressors and short barreled rifles. From Palmetto State Armory buyers skipping the paperwork to the Fifth Circuit tossing Biden's gas stove limits, Erick says "we learned it by watching you." He then celebrates the V8's comeback (the Wall Street Journal on Ram scrapping the Hurricane six for the Hemi, Stellantis, and GM), skewers the Cybertruck and Ford Lightning, and warns Republicans that Ken Paxton could actually lose to Democrat James Talarico, citing Mark Halperin's blunt on air alarm.

• The National Firearms Act ruled unconstitutional in North Texas: Judge Hendricks, the Trump DOJ declining to appeal, suppressors and short barreled rifles going permit free, and Palmetto State Armory buyers lining up in South Carolina
• "We learned it by watching you": Proposition 8, the unenforced California marriage law, Bill Clinton's immigration settlement, Obergefell, and Republicans now winning settlements on gas stoves and dishwashers
• Suppressor myths versus reality, the James Bond pillow trick debunked, and Erick's own range day at Bullets and Burgers near Las Vegas
• Cliff calls from southwest Georgia on data centers and water, the DSA's misleading El Paso video, fracking water recycling, and a Washington State town funded 57 percent by one data center
• Americans and the V8: the Wall Street Journal on Ram's Hemi comeback, Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa, GM expanding V8 output, the Cybertruck and Ford Lightning as cautionary tales, plus Ken Paxton versus James Talarico with Mark Halperin sounding the alarm

Erick digs into a troubling defense story: in the Combined Resolve war games in Germany, Ukrainian drone operators wiped out a US armored brigade every single time, exposing how far behind America has fallen even as Reaper drones run low and Iran picks off the rest. He ties it to a missile production problem (the Pentagon never sent Lockheed Martin and Raytheon the demand signal, dating back to the 1993 "last supper" consolidation dinner) and to a Trump class battleship the Navy openly says it does not need, calling it a jobs program instead of a warfighting force. Then he pivots to Luigi Mangione's expected federal guilty plea in the Brian Thompson murder, Abdul El-Sayed and Sharia's view of dogs behind Detroit's 74 percent shelter kill rate, and a full throated case for tort reform built around the dismissed Hershey Reese's peanut butter pumpkin lawsuit.

Topics:

• US drone vulnerability: the Combined Resolve exercise in Germany, Ukraine's 412th unmanned systems regiment routing the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, dwindling Reaper drones, and Iran's F-5s slipping into Kuwait
• Missile and shipbuilding dysfunction: the missing Pentagon demand signal, the 1993 "last supper," Lockheed Martin's thin 8 to 9 percent margins, continuing resolutions since Obama, and the Trump class battleship the Navy says it does not want
• Luigi Mangione expected to plead guilty to federal charges in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and Tyler Robinson's lawyers fighting the death penalty in the Charlie Kirk assassination case
• Abdul El-Sayed, Sharia law and dogs, and Detroit's 74 percent animal shelter kill rate, plus Erick's own dog Max and the South Georgia dog whisperer
• Tort and lawsuit reform: the trial lawyer billboard economy (Morgan and Morgan, Morris Bart, Ken Nugent), the dismissed Hershey Reese's pumpkin lawsuit, and Scott Bessent scrapping the Biden small business registration rule

1. Strait of Hormuz Crisis
   President Trump says the United States controls the Strait of Hormuz, but commercial shipping has collapsed and oil prices are rising as Iran continues to threaten the vital waterway.

2. Ukraine Dominates U.S. Drone Exercises
   Ukraine defeated American forces in every scenario during a recent drone warfare exercise. The results expose a dangerous military readiness gap and an opportunity for the United States to learn from a potential ally.

3. Mike Lindell Loses Minnesota Primary
   Mike Lindell is alleging voter irregularities after losing the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary despite President Trump's endorsement. The result adds to a growing list of Republican voters rejecting Trump-backed candidates in state races.

4. Former SPLC Leader Indicted
   Former Southern Poverty Law Center executive Heidi Beirich faces federal charges involving secret payments to informants inside white supremacist groups. Prosecutors allege wire fraud, false bank statements, and a conspiracy to conceal money laundering.

Erick breaks down a wild primary night: Democratic socialist Francesca Hong loses Wisconsin after Governor Tony Evers talked David Crowley back into the race, the polls badly oversampled white progressives, and Mike Lindell gets crushed in Minnesota's GOP governor primary. Then he warns Republicans that college-educated suburban voters are the new turnout machine, that Ken Paxton is dragging down Texas against James Talarico, and delivers a signature monologue arguing progressivism is a religion, complete with a viral clip of a reporter insisting you "can't be racist against white people."

• Wisconsin fallout: Francesca Hong's loss, David Crowley, Tony Evers, and why polling oversampled white progressives
• The GOP's midterm problem: college degrees as the new turnout predictor, and suburban Republicans running behind in Georgia and Texas
• Ken Paxton dragging down the Texas ticket against James Talarico, plus Trump's losing streak of endorsed candidates and lame-duck status
• Minnesota primary: Lisa DeMuth wins as Mike Lindell flops, with Michelle Tafoya and Peggy Flanagan setting up the Senate race
• The big monologue: intersectionality, allyship, and DEI as religion, illustrated by a reporter's "you can't be racist against white people" meltdown