S15 EP204: Hour 2 - Why Your New Home Costs $131,000 More, and the GOP Consultants Who Cashed In While Republicans Lost

Erick Erickson breaks down how building codes written by the manufacturers who profit from them, stacked on Trump's tariffs on Canadian lumber, steel, and aluminum, now add $131,734 in regulation to the average new home and push the cost to build a house out of reach. Then he defends Marco Rubio from a Washington Post hit over flying to his son's Florida Gators games, warns that Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito make 2028 a Supreme Court election, and blasts the Republican consultants who never told voters what Annie Andrews and James Talarico actually believe.

Building codes and housing affordability: the National Association of Home Builders' $131,734 regulatory price tag, $40,288 from a decade of code changes, the $17 breaker that became a $112 ground fault breaker, and how manufacturers on the national code committees ratchet the code tighter every three years Trump's 45 percent tariff on Canadian softwood lumber, steel and aluminum tariffs, AI data centers driving up concrete prices, 7.18 percent mortgage rates, and callers on why Energy Star efficiency rules mean appliances now last 10 years instead of 30 Marco Rubio and the Washington Post attack over government flights to his son's University of Florida football games, despite an Iranian threat on the Secretary of State's life 2028 and the Supreme Court: Clarence Thomas at 78 and Sam Alito at 76, Brian Kemp versus Raphael Warnock, Joe Lombardo in Nevada, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ken Paxton underperforming, and why doubling down on J.D. Vance is a mistake Consultants cash out as the GOP crashes out: Annie Andrews in South Carolina, James Talarico in Texas, culture war ads in an economy election, and the anti-tariff wins of Jeff Hurd in Colorado and Paul LePage in Maine