Erick Erickson opens with a hot September CPI inflation report, a 3.7% annual rate, gas up 9.1% in a month and a 3.6% Social Security COLA for 2027, and argues the unfinished Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz tanker attacks are driving it. He then walks the global fire: Houthi strikes on Saudi Aramco, a drone attack off Bulgaria, protests shaking India's Modi, Ethiopia and Eritrea heading toward war, and the Starlink shutoff in Ukraine, all with midterm warnings for the White House and Republicans.

• CPI inflation report: 3.7% annual rate, core CPI at 2.6%, gasoline up 9.1%, real wages falling, and Erick's tariff "I told you so" on farmers and bankruptcies
• Social Security COLA 2027 of 3.6%, Fannie Mae mortgage rates near 7.5%, and talk of an October Federal Reserve interest rate hike
• Iran war fallout: six tankers hit in the Strait of Hormuz, Brent crude at $106, and why the Pentagon's 15 more days of bombing never happened
• Trump's Russian diesel deal, Argentine beef imports, and why Canada is the obvious supplier, plus farm country and midterm danger for Republicans
• World on fire: Houthi attack on Saudi Aramco, Bulgaria drone strikes, India protests against Modi, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the Starlink cutoff in Ukraine

Erick Erickson opens as President Trump welcomes Xi Jinping to the White House and the administration caves on its ban of CNN, MS Now, and Politico, then explains why a declining China, not a rising one, is the real danger: purged generals, a stalled Chinese economy, Iran's oil squeeze, and Beijing's push to get Trump to abandon Taiwan. Then Erick celebrates Argentine President Javier Milei's blistering United Nations speech, the free market results of ending rent control in Buenos Aires, and why EU bureaucrats, Adrian Vermeule's common good constitutionalism, and Abdul El-Sayed's word salad on Iran all point the same direction.

• Trump and Xi Jinping at the White House: the CNN, MS Now, and Politico ban reversed, and the Tiananmen Square irony of barring CNN on the day China's dictator arrives
• China in decline: Peter Schweizer on Xi purging the Central Military Commission and 45 missing generals, Greg Ip and Rhodium Group on a Chinese economy that may be growing near zero, and Senator John Kennedy's "he learned to lie before he learned to talk"
• China, Iran, and Taiwan: Beijing helping Iran target Americans, U.S. missile batteries on Philippine islands in the Luzon Strait, and why Erick wants Reagan style confrontation instead of friendship
• Javier Milei at the UN: a "cast of fatally arrogant parasites," Argentina's economy rebounding after cutting tariffs, price controls, and rent control, and the free market lesson for Trump populists and JD Vance
• EU Digital Markets Act rules forcing Apple to rewrite its app tracking prompt, Britain's disinformation push, Adrian Vermeule's common good constitutionalism, and Abdul El-Sayed refusing to condemn Khamenei and the IRGC in Michigan

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