Erick Erickson makes his sharpest case yet against Vice President JD Vance, arguing that Vance is to economics what Candace Owens is to the Charlie Kirk assassination: a professional contrarian who lands on the fringe answer and calls it heterodoxy. Erick plays three separate Vance clips (a think tank, the Senate floor, and Fox News) in which the vice president calls America's reserve currency status a "resource curse" that lets American consumers buy things too cheaply, then walks through the Heritage Foundation research on what the dollar actually buys you: cheaper mortgages, cheaper car loans, cheaper groceries, lower inflation and lower interest rates than anywhere else on earth. He notes that China, Russia, the Democratic Socialists of America, Tucker Carlson, and Vladimir Putin's favorite philosopher Alexander Dugin all want the dollar dethroned, and plays President Trump saying flatly that losing it means third world status. Then a Wall Street Journal scoop that should terrify Republicans: Iran is preparing to widen the war on purpose to spike gas prices and cost the GOP the midterms.

TOPICS

• JD Vance, the "resource curse," and why Erick Erickson says abandoning reserve currency status would turn America into a third world country
• Candace Owens, Hasan Piker, and the "it was the Jews" conspiracy that erased Tyler Robinson's confession in the Charlie Kirk murder
• Heritage Foundation research on the dollar: Charles de Gaulle, the BRICS nations, seigniorage, cheap borrowing, and exports up tenfold in 50 years
• The resource curse Vance misunderstands: Nigeria, Venezuela, and Botswana versus Norway's two trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund
• Iran's plan to escalate before the midterms: the IRGC, the Houthis, Bab al-Mandeb, Masoud Pezeshkian, and the Pentagon's missing demand signal to Raytheon and Lockheed
• Dianne Feinstein's pseudoephedrine ban as the perfect parable, plus Mark Thiessen, the $20 burrito, and cheap toasters