S15 EP148: Hour 1 - The Debt Spiral

The national debt just crossed $40 trillion, and it took only 95 days to add the last trillion, so Erick Erickson opens with the math nobody in Washington wants: our debt now exceeds our GDP, Social Security and Medicare are the engine, and neither party will touch it. He plays Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on CNBC defending the bond buybacks, promising fiscal consolidation with Russ Vought, and laying out what he calls the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world against Iran, with the strait under American control and Iranian oil exports at zero for 72 hours straight. Then a blunt message to President Trump: get off the White House lawn, stop showing off the new helicopter pad and the gold leaf, kill every tariff today, and go make the case against Abdul El-Sayed and the Democratic Socialists before the midterms.

• The $40 trillion debt, 95 days per trillion, and why JD Vance's "common good conservatives" want to stop talking about GDP
• Scott Bessent on CNBC: Treasury buybacks, the 10 year yield and your mortgage rate, poor liquidity at the 30 year, and the fiscal consolidation plan coming with Russ Vought
• Bessent on Iran: maximum economic pressure, the blockade, the toughest sanctions in history, the Venezuela precedent, and zero Iranian oil exported in 72 hours squeezing China
• Mandatory spending, the 2032 Social Security trust fund cliff, and why confiscating every American billionaire's wealth would not fund the government for a year
• Tariffs are a tax: Trump waiving steel, aluminum and car tariffs, Walmart's billions in tariff refunds, and Erick's pitch to drop all of them right now and put them back after the election
• Trump's Sikorsky Marine One helicopter pad, the gold leaf renovations, and Republicans begging him to get back on message while people cannot afford groceries
• Federal agents seize Eric Swalwell's devices, Max Miller stays in the race, and the DNC snubs Atlanta for Boston, Philadelphia or Denver in 2028
• Charitable giving maps to church attendance: the South and Utah give the most, DeKalb County and the coasts give the least
• Abdul El-Sayed says he is African too, plus American oil production now beating the rest of the world combined and new evidence China is lying about its economy