The prominent conservative radio host Erick Erickson has blasted the White House over its recent political gaffes and missteps, stoking the growing MAGA revolt against Donald Trump.
In a post on Elon Musk’s social network X on Monday, the former CNN and Fox News contributor lambasted the administration’s recent moves as “amateur hour” behavior by “the kids in the executive branch”.
Trump’s officials, he lamented, had “pushed the President on a plan to extend Obamacare subsidies without having buy in from House and Senate Republicans” and “put out a Ukraine plan no one really likes”, as well as failing to fill 18 red state judicial vacancies.
Erickson also argued that the Pentagon’s threat to prosecute Democratic senator Mark Kelly had “elevated [Kelly’s] stature” even as Democrats were “flirting with Gavin Newsom.”
Kelly, a former astronaut and naval aviator who is bound by laws governing ex-servicemen, had appeared in a video urging U.S. military members to “refuse” any “illegal orders” they might receive, prompting a Department of Defense investigation and cries of “HANG THEM” in a social media post shared by the commander-in-chief.
It’s not the first time Erickson, who supported Trump in 2020 and 2024 but not 2016, has criticized the president — who he has increasingly been branded a “lame duck” as the mercurial real estate tycoon’s approval rating sinks.
Still, it comes as many less critical MAGA stalwarts have begun to turn against the President over his failure to address rising costs and his previous efforts to block the release of more documents about Jeffrey Epstein. Once it was clear that Republicans on the Hill would defy his wishes, he said he wanted them released after all.
Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has led the revolt, accusing Trump of protecting sexual predators and abandoning his “America First” agenda with too much foreign intervention.
Trump’s response was explosive, branding her “Marjorie Traitor Greene” and calling her a “ranting lunatic” who has gone “far left”. But Greene hit back, saying he had put her life in danger with “unwarranted and vicious attacks” that served to whip up his most hardcore supporters into a “frenzy”.
Some members of Congress are also disgruntled about the state of the economy, which Trump insists has never been better but which many business leaders and analysts believe is showing signs of trouble.
Reports indicate that even more GOP lawmakers are considering joining Taylor Greene in resigning their seats early, which would trigger special elections at a time where Trump’s approval rating has sunk to new lows.
Meanwhile, other reports claim that Trump’s planned Monday announcement of a plan to fix Obamacare price hikes has been put on hold due to backlash from Republicans in Congress.
Erickson has been a supporter of Trump, but not a blindly loyal one. Though he supported the president in 2020 and 2024, he criticized Trump for accepting a $400m luxury jump jet as a gift from the government of Qatar this May.
More recently, he has hammered Trump on his handling of the economy and the impact of his “unconstitutional” tariffs, calling him a “lame duck”.
