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Jack Fowler
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Victor Davis Hansen
Hello, ladies.
Jack Fowler
Hello, gentlemen. This is the Victory Davis Hansen Show. I'm Jack Fowler, the host, but you're here to listen to the star namesake that is Victor Davis Hansen, who is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. Victor's got a website, an official website, the Blade of Perseus. Its web address is victorhansen.com. i'll tell you why later in this episode why you should be subscribing. We are recording on Saturday, December 7th. This particular episode should be up on let me do my math straight. Tuesday the 10th. Victor, there's so much domestic stuff to talk about. I think though, we should begin with getting your thoughts about what's happening in Syria. And we'll end the show today since it is December 7th, the 83rd. I hate to call it an anniversary, but 83 years ago today, Victor, Pearl harbor was attacked and the Japanese were engaged in many other activities around the globe. And to get your thoughts on, as the military historian that you are, the acclaimed historian, on the broader efforts of Japan on that day. But first we'll talk about Syria. But first we're going to listen to these important messages. Notice how the days are shorter, but your to do lists aren't. Power through your busy days with Factors no prep, no mess, meals from breakfast to dinner and anything in between. Factor has easy, nutritious options to keep you fueled and feeling your best. Whether you like routine or you enjoy mixing things up, Factor has you covered with 35 different delicious meals every week and over 60 additional convenience options that you can add to your box like keto cookies, pressed juices and smoothies. Don't let shorter days slow you down. Stay energized with America's number one ready to eat meal delivery service. Because Factor's meals are chef prepared and dietitian approved, you're going to love not only how Factor's meals taste, but also how they support your goals. And check this out. Factor is cheaper than takeout and dining out. Put the money you save towards holiday shopping or reaching your financial goals. Head to factor meals.com 50Victor and use the code 50Victor to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's code 50Victor@factormeals.com 50Victor to get 50% OFF your first box plus free shipping while your subscription is active.
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Jack Fowler
We'Re back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor, I think this is creeping up on a lot of people who are interested in foreign policy, but Syria? So today, reading the Daily Mail this morning, the question here is Assad on the ropes? His Russian and Iranian supporters, mercenaries, however you want to call them, they seem to have fled. So it looks like by the time this episode is up, the rebels will have taken over Damascus. So Victor, who are the rebels? What's happening is this change of this regime, this Looming change in America's interests. Is it in Israel's interests? Is it in the world's interest?
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, it would be in our interest if both the Sunni insurgents, which are supported by the Turkish government and Mr. Erdogan, remember, said he wanted to send troops to Gaza, and he said he was recreating the Ottoman Empire. Something I wrote about the end of everything. It would be nice if both sides lost, sort of like the Iran Iraq War, but not that we want bloodshed and death of innocents. But in my view, it's preferable that the Syrian dictatorship is out, even though it's going to be a lot more chaotic, and then Turkey is going to be the new player. But why is it happening now? I mean, they were completely. They had tried to take Aleppo and now Hama is. They're going to take the two or three largest cities. The Russians are doing what we did in Kabul. They're leaving quickly, the big sea base there. So why is this happening? I think it's because of three things. Number one, Iran has been defanged. What do I mean by that? Hezbollah's hierarchy is destroyed. Hezbollah has helped them. Hamas has been destroyed. Israel has humiliated Iran. Israel has told the world that they sent 500 projectiles into our territory. They did nothing. And we sent a minuscule amount and took out their entire air defenses. So now Iran, they sent up a ballistic missile with a satellite. They're trying to. They don't know what to do, Jack, because they're sitting there paralyzed. They thought to save face and to energize our surrogates, we've got to hit Israel back. But if we do, they're going to wipe us out in the sense that they'll take our nuclear facilities and they'll take our oil exporting. So they're in a Mexican standoff right now, and they're as growing unrest in Iran as there always is. But this time, they know that there's another wild card, and that's Donald Trump is coming into office. Last time he came in, what did he do? He slapped an oil embargo on them. He said, no more. Don't even think of an Iran deal. Don't think of getting a nuclear weapon. He cut off their surrogates. Hamas took away $700 million. It was funneled to the PA and by indirection, Hamas as well. And he's back. So Iran is looking around and he's saying, we don't really want to get involved with you, Hezbollah and Hamas, because you're kind of inert. And if we do. He's going to put a big oil embargo on. And we have a lot of. So the whole thing is in turmoil. Russia's bogged down. Its two patrons are Russia and Iran. Iran is paralyzed and Russia is bogged down in the Ukrainian war. So it doesn't look good for them. And I would imagine that the Turkish government, because they do want these, that's also directed at the independent Kurdish movement on its border. They want to take control of Syria and make it into a puppet state. And I suppose you could say in theory, well, Victor, we have a NATO power who's going to get rid of a dictatorship and that'll be that. NATO is in the driver's seat. Not really, because it's a NATO power. Name only should not be in NATO, but we're not going to get there.
Jack Fowler
I saw Victor. He gave some talk this week. I saw a very short video clip. Erwan, however, the madman running Turkey, I think he was praising the end of Western civilization or something like something to that effect. I mean, he is anathema to NATO to.
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, I mean, he said that the most glorious day in the history of Turkey was May 29, 1453, what we call Black Tuesday, when they stormed Constantinople, destroyed 1100 years of Christendom in Asia and then butchered somewhere between seven and 15,000 people and then enslaved the rest. And that was the end of Constantinople. He thinks that was a wonderful event. And he's bullied Greece, he's bullied Cyprus, he's bullied Israel. And we don't trust him with some of the components of the F35 which were under Turkish auspices. He's flirted with Russia, but now, you know, there's no honor among thieves. So he thought he would flirt with Russia. Now Russia and Turkey are at each other's throat. He's an opportunist. He's terrified of Donald Trump. And Trump, as he said in Bragadac the other day, he said he had done more in three weeks than Joe Biden did in four years to restore sanity and calm. And he's true, he did. So it's in flux. And everybody, you have to be careful with Assad because everybody thinks he's not Hafiz at Al Assad, his father. So he's more brutal than his father. So the idea that he's going to go quietly, he'll do a Samson and pull the whole country down upon himself and kill as many people as he thinks he needs to. They've killed over a million people in Syria in the last decade. Remember, Nancy Pelosi went over to him during the first year of the Trump administration, or the Bush administration, I think, or at least twice, and sort of flirted around with him and said that he was a valuable supporter. And the Bush administration said, not really. He's letting all the terrorists go across the border into Iraq. But it doesn't work to talk to this guy. And if he's gone, maybe some of these former ISIS members that are under the control of Turkey will be marginally better. I don't know. But it's good that they're weakening each other.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Victor, you just mentioned. Of course, obviously, we all know Trump is back or coming back, but he does really seem to be the president in a way already. Right before we started recording this episode, I saw a video clip of him arriving in France, where he is today for the. He was meeting with Macron at the opening, the reopening, should we say, of Notre Dame. And he treated like he's the President of the United States. And you can't help but forget again, other than when you see pictures of Crazy Joe Biden with his hair blowing in the wind, looking like Ebenezer Scrooge.
Victor Davis Hansen
He looked natural with his hair all.
Jack Fowler
Remember, could have used a little brow cream.
Victor Davis Hansen
Didn't Rush used to call him Plugs? Yeah, Plugs grew out. He looked more natural. Yeah, he looked like that guy in Back to the Future. Remember him?
Jack Fowler
Yeah. There was like static electricity and a hurricane at the same time.
Victor Davis Hansen
What's funny about all this? They went so paranoid about Trump and they destroyed Michael Flynn about the ossified Logan Act. Remember that? Trump is negotiating. He's not even president. That's against the law. And now it's like, take over. Please get rid of him. We don't want him anymore. Let Trump be president now. So he's Logan acting everything. He is the virtual president right now. Everybody knows it. And Macron. Why would he. Macron, they said. Did you read the news accounts where it said it was very important to him that Donald Trump showed up?
Jack Fowler
I did not. No. Really?
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah, he did. He said that. And Donald Trump agreed to go over there. And it really sort of. I don't know what the word is, but it dovetails with the French, right, that one of their main talking points is that they're defenders of the west, of Christendom, of traditional France. And then to see the President of the United States go to Notre Dame probably helps them more than it does Macron. There's a very revealing picture when they're walking today and Trump has his head turned away in disdain and he's huge. You know, Trump dominates the picture. And then there's this sort of Petite Macron, looks like a dandy. And he's clutching Trump's right hand. They're holding hand, but Trump seems to be bothered by it. Looking at in the opposite direction, like, who is this gadfly? So, and I say that as a big supporter of France. I like the French, I always do. And I think they're good allies. But it would be nice to see a conservative, a real conservative government in there. Yeah.
Jack Fowler
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Victor Davis Hansen
When I first saw it, I thought this was not, you know, in my tsk, tsk, aristocratic personality. I thought this is beneath the dignity of the Congress. But, you know, ever since that young fellow with a jockstrap filmed himself in a passive sexual act, they didn't have any decency after that and they didn't really do much to him. Right. But the point. I thought at first the congressman was yelling, but then when I looked at it and I saw it twice, he was reacting, he was calm. He just said, on this commemoration date, traditionally, the person assigned to protect the president has to be there. And he had heard, apparently through back channels, of unhappiness among Secret Service rank and file that the acting Secret Service, Mr. Rowe, had kind of. What would be the word, squirmed his way in for a photo op to.
Jack Fowler
Be a little grandstanding. Yeah.
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes. At the expense of the people who actually do protect our presidents. And that was a legitimate. The person was basically saying in the context of the Secret Service's dismal performance in these failed, but not so easily failed, almost successful assassination attempts, something is wrong. And you're now the nominal head. And yet we're hearing, basically, he said, I don't know if he said, you're hearing, but that's where the information we came, that there's low morale. And here you are next to the president when you're not really an active Secret Service rank and file person who's ready to do it. You're the administrator and you've just gone in there for the full. And he went ballistic. How dare you talk about that. This is horrible. It's been easy. And he just started screaming. And all he did was, if there was one little smidgen of doubt, that Donald Trump is not going to remove that guy. I don't think he's civil service. He dispelled it. I think anybody who saw that guy's outburst said, wait a minute. The person who is responsible for protecting the United States first family and retired presidents has to be cool, calm, and collective. And this man is completely out of control. This is the second or third time he's done the bulldog. Flat top, tough guy, FBI, glasses. Look, we're sick of that. We've seen it with McCabe, we've seen it with Comey. We've seen it with all these people. Fauci. We don't. We don't. It doesn't do anything to us. We've been there, done that. We're so over it. And so when he thinks he's going to play the bulldog, and that's going to show that because he can scream at, yell at an elected congressman, this unelected bureaucrat, that that's going to imprison, that he brings that same rigor and toughness to his job. No. All that shows you is that he is unstable and he shouldn't be anywhere near the protective cadre that's responsible for keeping Donald Trump alive one more day.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, I think however many months it is now four or so from Butler and maybe three from Palm.
Victor Davis Hansen
Ben, it almost came as close in Palm Beach. That guy would have had a better shot. I mean, he would have shot the President.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, I don't feel any, as an American, I'm more confident about our Secret Service today than and I don't feel.
Victor Davis Hansen
Any more confident that the left said, oh my gosh, they almost killed him. We better stop calling him Hitler. And no more new Republic covers with a mustache on it. No more Kamala Harris saying that he's Hitler. Because you know what might happen? All of these nuts out there, as we've said before in this will conclude, hey, he's Hitler. You know what we do with Hitler? You shoot him and you become an instant hero for the ages. And second, the Secret Service is pretty mediocre and two amateurs got pretty close and I'm a much better gunman. So therefore, if I do it a third time and succeed, I will be a popular cultural hero for the ages. And that's the message that receives. So to ensure the President's safety, you have to get a new crew that has zero tolerance for any laps or mistakes on the part of the Secret Service. And then secondly, you've got to chastise people who call him Hitler. And of course that would entail, let's be honest, who has used the Hitler. Well, that's retired generals. We have a retired four star general said it was equivalent to the people on the other side of D day. We have, we have another four star who said that he was a Mussolini like fascist. We have another person who said that he was a liar. We have General Hayden, who's former CIA director that said his border policies were analogous to Auschwitz. Well, if you're going to recreate Auschwitz, then some killer is going to think it's a noble and fitting thing, decorous thing to kill him. So all those people, I'm not suggesting that they all be brought up on Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I'm just saying that from now on I think this administration is going to, especially if Pete Hexaf is nominated, he's going to tell all the retired officers there is such a thing called the retired, the Uniform Code of Military Justice A, B, it does cover flag officer C. There's not going to be anybody during this administration who's calling the President of the United States a fascist Hitler like Figure there's going to be no more revolving doors. We're not going to have people going into civilian positions in the Pentagon at the highest levels and then revolving back to their homes on defense policy, defense contractor boards or as lobbyists. And I think we're going to have no more Joint Chiefs who think that they're in the chain of command when they're in an advisory role. And finally, we're going to consider it treason if any four star general calls up, without the knowledge of the President of the United States, a communist counterpart and warns him about the proclivities, dangerous proclivities of the President. Any other country, Milley, would have been that act would have been considered treasonous. And if you didn't, you think that's an unfair characterization. He's been calling him fascist, remember that, Jack, for the last week before the election. And then all of a sudden Trump is elected and he says, yeah, I thought about it. He's not a fascist. We'll be just fine. In other words, he's going to be president and if I keep this stuff up, they're going to prosecute me and court martial me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Yeah. He's having this Joe Scarborough, come to Jesus moment. By the way, Rachel Maddow is really angry about because she's told all of us you don't talk to him because not only is he a fascist, but he's guilty of winning the election through Russian collusion.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. We should talk a little about Morning Joe. By the way, I have a lot.
Victor Davis Hansen
Oh, he's your friend, not mine.
Jack Fowler
I have a retained friends policy. I know you do.
Victor Davis Hansen
You're very loyal.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. By the way, speaking of bluster, I know I'm springing this on you, but this Boston City Councilwoman, Tanya Fernandes Anderson. Did you see that?
Victor Davis Hansen
I did.
Jack Fowler
She got arrested because she's a Black Lives Matter activist. She was one of the most crude public servants you ever saw at a city council meeting. Happened to be the City Council of Boston. And she did get arrested, I think, yesterday. The thing that got me, Victor, was she got arrested leaving her apartment or wherever the hell she was living. The cops picked her up on the sidewalk. How come the FBI wasn't knocking her door down at 6am in the morning?
Victor Davis Hansen
You mean like James O'Keefe with his underwear?
Jack Fowler
Well, right. Or the pro life rosary prayers because.
Victor Davis Hansen
They don't want to be called racist, I suppose. But she had a little tweet where she said, did you see it? I'm a Proud black woman, African immigrant. And she had pro Middle east or something, anti Zionist. She tried to punch every button. And basically you wanted to say to her, let me get this straight. You came from a very impoverished Islamic traditional African society and all of the values that you're champion, you apparently don't champion them very much because you wanted to leave all of that. You had an embryo of Islam and you were around African culture and language and people. And yet you chose to come over to this racist, homophobic, sexist society and then you wanted to list all of your affiliations that were you thought anti American. And then you, you took our generosity as one of our guests and how did you repay it? You hired people in your own family and you probably got kickbacks from them. And then you made the taxpayers of racist Boston pay for it. And now you're outraged that finally the FBI in very anemic fashion said, could you please step in our little car, we think you might have committed some felonies. And yeah, she's up there with. I looked at some of the things she said. I didn't know you were going to ask me about it, but I had been curious. There's only two public figures that I can see that are more overtly racist than she is. One is Joy Reed, who just cannot talk about anybody but white people. She hates white people, right? Talks about them all the time. Megyn Kelly is wonderful on Joy Reed. And the other is that. Have you seen that Representative Crockett from Texas? She gets up every once in a while and she goes on these. I have these former confederates. I was a slave 150. She is really out there with her hatred of white people.
Jack Fowler
Oh my gosh.
Victor Davis Hansen
And I think we're getting to a point where there's so many different interests in our country that the anti white. We can't be racist because we're not white. So we can call it. That's over with. I think there's so many. It doesn't work. We have so many different people who can. You know, in California we have 45%. The Hispanic population is the largest population.
Jack Fowler
Right.
Victor Davis Hansen
And when you look at hate crime statistics, by far the 2 to 3% Jewish population makes up 50% of the crime victims. And the perpetrators are all over represented except so called white people. So nobody talks about this. Just like that dead horse I beat about the people who die at twice their numbers of the demographic in Iraq and Afghanistan are white. But that's going to be something. Everybody talks without fear anymore. You're racist. If you're racist. If you look at somebody's superficial appearance and then you use that to confirm a stereotype, negative stereotype. And that's what she does. All of those people.
Jack Fowler
Well, what may have worked for her in 2020 is not working anymore. Victor, we've got a couple of other things to get your views on. I think Trump's first hundred days would be a good place to start, and we'll go there when we come back from this.
Victor Davis Hansen
Wait, wait. Before you go, did you say first hundred days?
Jack Fowler
Well, we've already.
Victor Davis Hansen
I think we're already into them. I detect a tyrannical reference to the hundred days of Napoleon when he tried to overthrow the constitutional monarchy of the Bourbons, who had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. You are trying to put in there subconsciously a Napoleonic autocratic references. Trump's hundred days. Forget about it.
Jack Fowler
Okay, you got me. I know it's because I'm reading De Gaulle's war memoirs.
Victor Davis Hansen
And that's what you also do. The okay thing like this.
Jack Fowler
Is that how you do it?
Victor Davis Hansen
I don't know what the whites. I forget.
Jack Fowler
Hey, but we'll get to some of this stuff when we come back from these important messages.
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Jack Fowler
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Victor Davis Hansen
I have on the paywall. Yeah. And this was, I just finished with Pete Hexaf and coterminous with it. I also wrote a syndicated column about what the Trump nominees will not do. And I mentioned that Pete, if he's confirmed, will not take a private Pentagon jet and fly across the country like Leon Panetta did. He will not, as a former defense secretary, should he finish his tenure, lie as Leon Panetta did, and said that the 51 authorities like himself, knew that the laptop. And then when he was caught on it, not apologize, but double down on national tv. He's not going in. He's not coming in from Raytheon and he's not going to go back from Raytheon as Lloyd Austin does. So I think that if you look at the fundamental existential things you want in a defense secretary, intimate knowledge of the military, preferably people who've been in combat, people who can write and think, and published authors. He has an Ivy League. All he doesn't have is the resume that got us in this mess. That's right. The same is true for this. Starting Jack today and Monday and Tuesday. It's on Cash Patel, whom we've had on this program. And I'm kind of amazed at all the hostility toward him because.
Jack Fowler
Oh, my gosh.
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah. If you look at his resume, if you want somebody with intelligence and law enforcement and investigative. Gosh, investigative. He was the guy that Devin Nunes turned loose to crack the whole caper of Comey and Steele and the dossier. He worked for the Pentagon. He's worked as a prosecutor with the DOJ in terrorist, anti terrorist capacities. He was a public defender. He's got everything you would need, according to the Deep State. But they're after him because he hasn't been a law enforcement officer. That's like saying Donald Trump shouldn't be president because prior to 2016, he wasn't a president. Or, you know Elon Musk. Yeah.
Jack Fowler
Elected official.
Victor Davis Hansen
Elon Musk didn't know anything about electric cars before he took on the big three. And then he's got kind of a photographic memory. I know a lot of people in government back, but he's one of the most blunt, graphic, tough, but also he has a very unusual intellect and memory.
Jack Fowler
Victim. People should go. We just said go to the Blade of Perseus. They should look. Search in the podcast archives. You did an interview with him earlier this year. It was terrific. It was. This guy is so good.
Victor Davis Hansen
They're mad at him because in a moment of exuberance to the hated Steve Bannon. They hate Steve Bannon. He said, we're going to come after the people. But he meant the people who broke the law. Right? Yeah. So if you're Anthony Fauci and you testify under oath and you say that the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, along with the National Institute for Health, no way, no how, gave money to support gain of function research on virology and virology that was banned the United States and then you find out that he looked at Rand Paul with a straight face after he had recirculated $600,000 to his pal Peter Dasic, who had rigged at Lancet independent investigation to confirm that it wasn't. It was all a fraud and lie. And so all people like Cash are saying is if, if they lied to Congress and they did it under oath, it has to mean something. Same thing with Liz Cheney and those people on the January 6th. You shouldn't go after them. But if it comes to the people's notice that they destroyed subpoena materials or they had interviews, that they destroyed the evidence, I don't know if they did, but there's nothing wrong with looking at that.
Jack Fowler
I don't want you to.
Victor Davis Hansen
Did you see Obama, Jack, what he.
Jack Fowler
Said was this about his speech at the Obama foundation the other day? Yesterday?
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah, one of them was at the foundation.
Jack Fowler
Can I just say it was the ultimate example of projection I've ever seen. Go ahead, Victor.
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah, no, you're right. He said basically one of the things we do not want to do. And Donald Trump, well, first of all, he said, you know, I'm supposed to talk about democracy and democracy is pretty low on people's agendas now. Meaning what? There was a record number of Republicans had never voted with such numbers in history for a presidential candidate. They had never won the popular vote. So isn't he saying that a two party system is good and you don't want a uni party? And then of course, when he got on to Donald Trump was a threat, you think, well, what would he, what would you constitute a threat? Keeping, trying to take Obama's name off the ballot, trying to turn five local and state prosecutors after Obama, impeaching Obama twice, trying him as a private citizen, raiding his home. Maybe they could take the Trump Watts SWAT team into. That would be hard though, Jack. Where would you go? You go Coloroma, you go Hawaii Mansion or you go Chicago Mansion or you go Martha Vineyard Mansion. But the point is that everything that he accused Trump of, he and his successors did. Trump, some people say, no, no, that was Biden. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He sat in the Oval Office while John Brennan and Clapper were there talking about active CIA, FBI surveillance. And if you think he didn't, he didn't support radically changing customs and traditions to suit him. He used the filibuster to try to stop Alito, one of our best judges tried to stop him by filibustering. And then he turned around at a funeral service and said that the filibuster was a racist relic and it had to go. So whatever they're in, the majority has to go. When they're a minority, then you have to use it to stop a judge from being confirmed. I think he lost so much capital in this iteration of the Obama appearances because, again, I don't want to beat a dead horse. But that iconic moment when he told those earnest African American political Democratic activists, he said, basically, you don't know it, but you're suffering from false consciousness and the African American male is voting for a racist and sexist, and only people like me who have experience with such intricacies of human nature can advise you. And basically, basically, they looked at him with daggers. I think that if we translated their looks into a text, they would have said so you were the community organizer who, the last year of your presidency, when Trump was running against Hillary, you just outsourced yourself to Netflix and all of these tech companies. You ended up making 100 million bucks. Now you're worth a half a billion. And you, you've got four mansions and you've got a 2,000 gallon propane tank while you lecture us about global warming. And you seem to think global warming is an existential threat and it's going to put our seashore underwater. But you seem to have a propensity to buying homes on the coast at Hawaii and Martha's Vineyard and flying private, private, private, private, with a big fossil.
Jack Fowler
Fuel footprint, carbon footprint.
Victor Davis Hansen
I think he's just such a hypocrite in so many different fields. And he does that hope and change stuff with that fake cadence. When we were here, everybody said, no, just talk. Barack. We know. We've been there. We suffered through it for eight years. We know the phony black accent. We know all of the I'm not going the pradoridio where you say, I'm not going to attack my enemies, but I won't. I'll admit the fact that Donald Trump is, you know, that's what he does, is a fascist or something done with him. He really lost currency in this election because he lost his capital out there.
Jack Fowler
His stock has fallen dramatically. Victor, this video, this was on X. His talk at the Obama Foundation. I thought it. Look, I don't like the guy. I've never liked the guy, but I thought it bought it on pathetic. His tone, his rhetoric. And he may be the last one in the room to realize how the mighty have fallen.
Victor Davis Hansen
It was what we always talk about. It was exactly what the left's thinking. The left is thinking, if I were Donald Trump and the left or the right or whoever had done to me what we did to Donald Trump and we were in power right now, I know what I'd do if I was Donald Trump against me, I would go after him and use every branch of government the way that Biden did against him and therefore Trump, because I'm a morally superior person to Trump. They think Trump will surely do something because we would if we'd suffered what we dished out to him. But, you know, he's not going to do that. He's already said success is his revenge. And so, again, this is the guy who really was the father of Russian collusion because it was hatched out with Operation Hurricane. Crossfire. Crossfire. Hurricane in his office. And people told him that it was going on, and he knew that. He knew that. He knew the CIA was involved. He knew the FBI was involved, and he did nothing or he encouraged it. And he knows that. He knows that this is a guy, you know, that every time that he had a chance to divide the country and demagogue for political benefit the racial issue, he said, you know, Trayvon would look like the child I never had. Right. During the trial of George Zimmerman, where that really. He interfered in a lot of legal proceedings. Remember after the Skip Gates thing where he just casually said that everybody knows the police harass black people. And he just said stuff like that America is not only exceptional in the way that the Greeks and the British think their country is exceptional. He just went somewhere and apologized. Did you see that? It was somewhere. No, no. I'm sorry. Biden went to Angola and apologized for slavery.
Jack Fowler
I thought he slept the whole time, but I didn't know.
Victor Davis Hansen
I did not know one of two things. Sleeps or apologize. Yeah.
Jack Fowler
Wow.
Victor Davis Hansen
I guess people at Bangola, we're sorry that nine generations ago, Europeans partnered with your ancestors to enslave fellow black Africans. If he'd said that, at least it would be a long. And we were tutored by the Arab Muslim world, who took more slaves out of Africa than Westerners did and continued far longer and continue today in some places.
Jack Fowler
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Victor Davis Hansen
I never heard of that before. That you would give blanket pardons for any subsequent discovery that they had engaged in criminal activity. Nor do I understand the mindset of an Anthony Fauci or Liz Cheney who would accept any oh, let me think about all the bad things I did. Yeah, I need protection. Give me a pardon because it's going to come up. So it's ridiculous. And this is a person who said remember those have you seen that clip on the Internet where someone has compiled all the times in conjunction with Biden's six refusals of any idea thought of pardoning the sun that people commentators said rule of law. What a contrast. Rule of law. It just shows that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. Yeah. So it's a mess. And as we hunter that pardon as I said to Sammy, but I didn't really dwell on it is a pardon for Jim Biden and Ashley Biden. Three generations of Bidens, the grandkids, the children and then Joe and Jill and they all had demonstrable lifestyles that is impossible to explain on a public servants even four years in the private sector. Joe Biden after the Obama administration could not have made that kind of money. And you don't really everything about it was you know when I read the letter, you know when he said that he's pardoning his son because of all of the treatment against him and then nobody ever is held, is put in jail because of a gun violation. Nobody's put in jail because of a dispute with the IRS that is drug addled. And I tweeted about that and I thought, no, they do that all the time. If you don't report, if you try to make a million to 2 million a year for three years in a row and don't report it, you go into the Fresno irs, which is a district headquarters, and you tell them that you were smoking too much crack cocaine so you forgot to pay them. And they're not going to let that off. They're going to say to you a simple thing, Mr. Biden, so you're trying to convince me that you could fly all over the world and you could conduct business with some of the most sophisticated, tough people in the world, and for some such reason, they would send you up to $2 million a year, but you were too drug addled the whole time this was occurring because you forgot to pay your taxes. I don't think so. Remember, they had already given him amnesty that Merrick Garland had for prior years, where he probably did not pay taxes prior to the years in question that he was being formally charged with. So he already had basically a de facto pardon from the government, right? And now he's basically saying, all of us, as soon as we become private citizens, we're all subject to examination because we all know we did stuff that was wrong. And Mr. Big Guy and Mr. 10%, you would be very funny. And as I said to Sammy, there's enough indications that Hunter Biden is one relapse away from bringing down Samson like the whole rotten temple of the Biden consortia. Because if you think about it, you know, what was all that about threatening to bring lawyers, his lawyers threatening to bring Biden in to testify? I talked about that with Sammy and also the whole. What was the idea about put the paintbrush in your nose or blow the straw? Is that what it. Straw? Take the straw and put the paintbrush in your mouth once and then blow. Is that to tell everybody in the Biden family, hey, everybody, look at this. You know, I'll just give an excursus here. We had 12 first cousins, my kids among them, on this ranch. And I had a very good sister, Dash, I would call her sister, first cousin. And they would volunteer to. To take kids, all the whole brood in a van, you know, up to the mountain. And one occasion, they were severely disciplined because some of the children were out in a boat and it was time to go and they were late and they had to get all 12 of them in the van. And they'd say, can't hear you. I can't hear you. Sorry. And they were 20ft off and they were rowing around and they'd say, get in there. Is it too deep to come and get us? Well, that's what Hunter was doing. He was saying, is there anything wrong with me reminding people that I used to blow through my nose? Well, maybe I should do that for the world to see my paint. So I'm going to put all the paint on the canvas and just like I did crack cocaine or snort, I'm going to blow out of my nose. And then I'm going to get every grifter who wants access to the West Wing and they're going to buy my paintings and I'll get some creepy guy who owns a studio or an art gallery in New York to claim that I won't know who the grifters are. Oh, dad, does that put you in danger? Maybe you better be very careful about what I say. And maybe you better start thinking of amnesty. That's what I say.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. We've discussed and many others have made the Biden Corleone comparisons, but I was watching the Godfather again last week and you know, it's such a great movie, but it's such an anti American movie, though. This is real. The Corleone have great contempt for America, but they great use for America cynicism.
Victor Davis Hansen
That everybody's up for sale.
Jack Fowler
Well, yeah. Or, you know, even the son Michael, who was allegedly not part of the scheme. He was going be what, Senator Corleone, President Corleone, who was going to pull the strings.
Victor Davis Hansen
I remember that you just thought of that great thing where Kay says to him, your family assume is their only corrupt. These politicians don't kill people. She says, you better think twice about saying that.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, yeah. America is a thing to be exploited by the Corleones, and it's proven to be a thing to be exploited by the Bidens. I think I have to. I have to reflect more deeply on the movie and the comparisons to this great Fredo.
Victor Davis Hansen
Is that your point? No.
Jack Fowler
Well, I think they're all kind of Fredos in one way. There's no. Certainly no one is comparable to Vito Corleone. Although Vito Corleone as a kid was kind of a mute.
Victor Davis Hansen
Right.
Jack Fowler
I mean, when he was. When he escaped from.
Victor Davis Hansen
I did the other day, though. I was. I woke up really early in the morning and just a thought hit me because I'd seen Younger Joe Biden, in his 50s, 40s, 30s, and he was very tan looking. And he had those hair implants and he had a head of hair. And he was. I'm not saying that he was rhetorically adept or mellifluous, but he could speak well. But here's my point. He had the worst attitude and snarky and made fun of people and cruel and attacked people. He was always that way. And then, you know, the plagiarizing of Neil Kinnick's speech, the line, that famous scene where he's with those reporters. It was that first time I was at the top of my laws. I had three scholarships. It was all a lie. And I saw the other clip you've talked about, you wrote about it, where he. I shouldn't say disparaged. He smeared, slandered and ruined the reputation of a truck driver who tried to avoid his first wife, who was probably culpable at that crossroads. But he's capable of anything. And so there is a force in the world, I don't know. The Greeks call it nemesis, The Indians call it karma. We call it divine intervention. But there is a leveling force in the universe. All of that career that he was so vain. He was always getting a tan. He had to have Botox, he had to have hair implants. He always had to make fun of people. He always had to skirt by, by line. He had to invent this false pseudo personality of old Joe Biden from Scranton. I think he moved when he was in his preteen years. And now it's all written on his face. It's all that sins collectively is life. You can see them.
Jack Fowler
Well, maybe we were just in the first inning of the justice for the Bidens. We'll see.
Victor Davis Hansen
I think they have a counting. It's kind of like. I'll just finish this Biden interlude, which we hadn't talked about doing. Did you see James Carville, his epitaph of the Biden career when he said he's a tragic figure?
Jack Fowler
I did. I thought we could maybe talk about that, but go ahead. Yeah, absolutely.
Victor Davis Hansen
It was nothing tragic. It was all predetermined. It was scripted. And he said, well, if he had just stepped down, he was never going to step down, Jill. And he had no intention of stepping down. We know that because they had no intention of saying no. When they stepped up. They knew he was demented. The Democratic Party knew he was demented. That was the point, that he wasn't Pete Buttigieg, he wasn't Spartacus, he wasn't Bernie Sanders, he was a demented old Democratic hack that could pass himself off under the guise of COVID and be secluded in the basement and play act that he was this conservative from Pennsylvania and Delaware. That was the point. And they could put through the most left wing agenda in history. And it all worked fine. And the only reason that he's tragic is because he couldn't finish the script and he just imploded. And so Caribou goes, well, if he had just stepped down. God just stepped down. If he just stepped down, he'd be. His name would be on a building. No, it wouldn't. He didn't. What Joe Biden let in 12 million illegal aliens. He destroyed the border. Joe Biden invited. He destroyed deterrence from. He let a Chinese balloon go across the United States. He offered his assessment was Vladimir Putin's on the verge of war. He said, depends on. It's a minor and major invasion whether we'll react.
Jack Fowler
I can go on.
Victor Davis Hansen
I don't want to get into it, but he's not a tragic figure. And no James Marvel. I mean, there's something weird about that guy. I was watching this, I'm speaking on a laptop now, but did you see the angle of that laptop he was on?
Jack Fowler
Yes, they have, they have angle problems, even Biden from above that I know Biden is.
Victor Davis Hansen
When you saw Biden and she was giving that keynote campaign address and he kind of snuck into the White House and he looked around, he thought, oh, no aids, no text. I'll just flip over and I'll have this weird angle like I'm crazy and I'll call half of America garbage and ruin her speech and occasion. And he did that. Carville's the same way. I was watching him and the angle was, you know what I mean? It was like he was on some kind of ski slope and then he had the sun coming behind him. I don't know if that was. He opened the window deliberately so he could have sort of, you know, those stock scripted halos and Renaissance Catholic and Byzantine picture where you have the rays coming out. But it was almost over his head. It was just bizarre. Then he uses the F word almost every other word.
Jack Fowler
Well, I think he thinks that part of the tragedy for Biden and this is how Washington thinks. Right. Is that. Well, he could have had the Biden, the Biden Presidential museum, et cetera. That would have been their honors and law.
Victor Davis Hansen
Somebody said they're not even going to buy a bookmobile.
Jack Fowler
Well, we promised Victor to get your thoughts on Trump's first hundred days and we're going to get to that. Maybe we will also get to some military history when we come back from these final important messages.
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Victor Davis Hansen
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Jack Fowler
But have 12 windows.
Victor Davis Hansen
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Jack Fowler
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Victor Davis Hansen
Service fees and terms apply.
Jack Fowler
We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen show, recording again on December 7, 2024. Victor Stephen Miller was on, I don't know if he was on Laura Ingram, one of the Fox shows. And he gave as he does boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh yeah. Really? Really.
Victor Davis Hansen
I'm going to fan of Stephen Miller. I'm especially a fan because he has some unique ability to drive the left absolutely insane.
Jack Fowler
Oh yeah. He knows it, enjoys.
Victor Davis Hansen
He knows how to push every one of their button.
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
Victor Davis Hansen
And he does, he's completely, he's got mastery of detail. That staccato, it was like a machine gun burst and it seemed it comes.
Jack Fowler
Off like this is. It's credible. Here's what he said. Energy boom return, getting rid of the illegals, peace in the Middle east, tax cuts, swamp drainage, going on all within the first hundred days. And I'm thinking, I believe this, at least it's going to start.
Victor Davis Hansen
He has to in the first hundred days. He's a lame duck president and he has to keep his enemies off guard and off balance and get it through. And he's got a lot of non traditional messengers. So rfk, Tulsi Gabbard along with Vivek, Vivek and Elon, they've all this weird crew has kind of startled his opponents and they can't quite figure out what's going on. So they've got to move, move, move, move. And you know, here in California I filled up, I drove down to Pepperdine and it was 5:40 in the LA area. And so my point is that so Gavin Newsom's grooming himself to run. So he's going to say, I promise you that if I'm president I will make sure that I restrict enough energy to get that price steady at $6. Is that what he wants to do? So he's going to run against that is what I'm saying. Donald Trump said he wants to get gas down to $3 a gallon.
Jack Fowler
I'm sorry to make you the news reporter here but again we're on December 7th Gavin Newsom's special session to Trump proof the state started a few days ago. I search for it like what's happened. I don't get any sense that there's been anything dramatic yet. Have you seen any?
Victor Davis Hansen
No. He's running for office and he wants to claim the territory on the left that he is the, the largest, the most important officer Holder is anti Trump. But given that we have the largest exodus of any state people leaving this country. We have the highest basket of sales, gas, income tax, we have the highest continental gas price and energy price. We're right down in the bottom five or six. As far as test scores, 27% of the state was not born in the United States. We have the largest number of illegal aliens of any state. The largest number. I'm tired. Homeless. We have one out of three people on public assistance. 21% of the state lives below the poverty line. And this is the key point. Under Gavin, we have the highest ratio of wealth disparity between the upper upper class and the lower lower, with a vanishing middle class. And he gets in, as I said, as Abercrombie and fish felt best. And he slicks his hair back and then he tries to use his hands like he's Cicero and he screams and yells and tough guy and he's ruined the state. So he wants to spend 25 million on legal fees to attack Trump and to help illegal aliens avoid deportation. Why he has a $75 billion budget deficit while he has a 13.3 income tax rate. You tell me how you do that. But he did it. So I just don't think that the campaign slogan from him I'm going to do for the United States what I did for California. It's going to work.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Well, Victor, putting on your military historian hat, cap, helmet, whatever, I am fascinated by the way your book the Second World Wars, I want to recommend to folks to read it, to get it again, make a little Christmas gift sale. If there's somebody in your family that is a military history buff, I think it's a terrific, terrific gift idea. I think you've sold over 100,000 copies of that. Have sold.
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Just a fascinating book, Victor. December 7th was a few days already into Japan's movements to not only attack Pearl harbor, but a number of other places, the Philippines and Thailand and other.
Victor Davis Hansen
Formosa. Formosa. Malaysia.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of fascinated that it. That country, not a tiny country, right? It was, but still half relatively at the time, half the population of America that it had such broad plans that succeeded at the get go. Anyway, could you talk about the scale and scope of what they.
Victor Davis Hansen
Once they were opened up by Admiral Perry to the west, they became hyper Western. So they had sent in the early 20th century, a quarter million nautical engineers to British universities, right. During the Dreadnought phase and had mastered Western technology and brought to it Japanese technology and ingenuity. And it started out as emulative and people kind of were condescending, especially Japan's role in World War I. They patrol the Mediterranean for the Allies, but by the 1930s they were hyper industrializing and with greater discipline as other countries were going through the Depression. And they looked out and said, you know what? We don't have any natural resources and we are 70 million people in a very small territory about the size of California. And this does not going to work. So the militarists took over, dissolved the parliament in a series of coups. And they looked at the strategic map and they said, let's go into China. First they went into Manchuria successfully. So, and if I could use that term, rape that colony. And then they went in 1937 and invaded China. People forget that by the time the war broke out with us, they controlled about 40% of China. And they controlled the two greatest cities, Beijing and Shanghai. And they had Chiang Kai Shek and Mao, Mao Zedong fighting among each other. And their whole plan was to annex the western part of China. They also controlled all of Korea, north and south. And by the way, North Korea was far more industrially developed than the south was. So forget this myth that North Korea and, and the communists, I mean they suffered a lot of damage during the Korean War, but that was always where the hydroelectric plants were and the heavy industry. And then they had a decision to make. And so the decision was this. They had three alternatives, four alternatives. That's right around November, October, and they're negotiating and giving this facade to the United States. They're not going to attack. I'll go back a little earlier, March of 1941 and they have a war council and some say, you know what, Hitler's going to invade Russia at some point. So he invades and they discuss should we go under Russia on December 7. According to Nazi lore. They can see the Kremlin spires are at the first subway station. Army Group center is going to take Moscow. So they thought they were going to take them any day. Vladislavak is what, two or three hundred miles across the Russian Japanese sea. So they thought good. People said, we'll go to Vladostavak and we'll get in late and we'll clean up western Russia, we'll meet the Nazis. And some said, well wait a minute, they screwed us over on the Molotov ribbon track. They made a private deal with Russia, now they've broken it. But at the time we were fighting Zhukov along the Mongolian border. So we should not break our non aggression. They had signed a non aggression pact with the Soviet Union in April of 1941. So anyway, the point is some people said we should go into Russia and then the other people said, no, we have a non aggression pact. And I'm not sure that Nazis are telling us the truth that they've knocked Russia out of the war. The second group said, we've got two and a half million people fighting in China. It's still 650 million people. And we, you know, no offense to the army, but when you look at Japanese aeronautical technology and naval technology, we have parity with Western power. We do not have parity in terms of heavy artillery, machine guns, mines, mortar. They had a good mortar and tanks. So that's the weakest of our arm of the Triad. And yet we're bogged down in China. So we got to just keep cool and finish the Chinese problem. And then a third said, no, wait a minute, I got a better idea. The Dutch East Indies doesn't exist. It's not Dutch. Holland fell. They fell in May of 1940. For a year and a half, there's nobody in charge and there is no French Indochina. There are a bunch of Vichy fascists. We'll just go in there and take the Mekong Delta and get all the rice in Asia. And they won't say a word. They're on our side. If they do, they're scared. And then they said, and then there's the rubber in Malaysia. We'll get that. We'll get the biggest. Britain is almost inert. We'll take Malaysia from them, we'll take Burma from them. But there's one thing we will not do. We'll tiptoe around Pearl harbor and we will tiptoe around the Mariana Islands and we will tiptoe around the Philippines and we United States will not get in because they didn't get in and help Britain during the European. And that was the big fight. And then Yamamoto, who everybody in the States idealizes still and says, oh, he was a poet, he had haiku, he was an artist. He said, I can raise hell for six months and then I can't guarantee, oh, I'm a tragic hero. No, no, no, no, no, no. His idea was the fourth view we got to attack the United States and we will destroy the Seventh Fleet. And we will give them such a humiliating blow, given that they will be confused with a two front war because Hitler will probably declare war on them and they're just about ready to go to kaput. And six months they will sue for peace. We have eight carriers in the Pacific. They have two or three. Their battleships are old. We have the two largest battleships in the world, the Yamato and the Mushasi, much bigger and better than anything the Americans have. That was their attitude, Yamamoto. So they chose the fourth, fourth option. Attack Pearl Harbor. And they did something that no one thought was possible. Admiral Short said, Richardson, Short and Kimmel, they all said it's impossible for a Japanese fleet to sail steam, I should say 3,500 miles under radio silence. There's no way that that huge armada would ever get close to Pearl harbor, the Philippines, without us knowing. And they did just that. And then they attacked. And they only had two sorties and they sank or disabled eight 20 to 30 year old battleships. Had the battleships known they were coming, Jack. And went out of Pearl harbor and met them on the high seas. That eight carrier group, they would have all been sunk in 30 minutes. So it was kind of a gift that we only lost 2,400 soldiers, sailors because they were in port. And some of the ships, I think six of them, five of them were refloated and actually did some yeoman duty on all of the Marine invasions of the Pacific islands. They were very valuable because of their 16 inch, 14 guns for naval support, bombing the Japanese. But they didn't take out the oil depots, they didn't take out the engineering works, the machine shops. They didn't do any of that. They could have stayed off. They lost about 35, 40 planes, but they could have stayed there for another day and really wreaked havoc. And then the carriers weren't there. The Saratoga wasn't there, the Lexington wasn't there, and the Enterprise wasn't there. And the Wasp and the Hornet weren't there yet in the Pacific. So they didn't take out any of our carriers. And just six months later at Midway, they would lose four carriers. And that was the turning point. That group of Americans was what E.B. sledge called the old breed. That was still before the big draft. They were just starting to draft people. But the core of the Marine Corps were the people who were lifers. And they were training a new young group of people in 1941. And the same thing was true of the Navy. So it was a very small group of professional and they were trying to, as fast as possible, train the new draftees. But they were amazing people. They really were too. In six months before the they had told Yamamoto they are building something called the Essex carrier, and they're going to build 20 or 30 of them and every one of them is going to be the best carrier in the world. And they're going to come in sometime in late 42 or mid 42. And that's when he coined the idea. I can Raise hell for six months.
Jack Fowler
Did Yamamoto's.
Victor Davis Hansen
I don't think he really said that, but that's what was attributed to him.
Jack Fowler
Didn't he serve in America for a while?
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes, he's a naval attache at Harvard. Another thing to remember though, all the Japanese people in the military who visited the United states in the 20s, 30s and 40s did not come across with the idea that we were a formidable military power. Economic. Yes. So Yamamoto thought that the people who wore spats and jiggerbud and did the Charleston in the 1920s were pretty soft people. Tojo, on his way to Europe, took a train across the United States. He came to the same conclusion as did the Foreign minister, Mitsoka. He had been, as I said, a foreign exchange student in an Oregon high school. He was fluent in English. He was one of the most militant anti Americans. So I think we have to disabuse ourselves that everybody in the world looks at us and wants to emulate us and. No, they think that we are pampered, privileged, unserious people. I don't agree with that, but they have that misconstruction.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well, remember like the Islamic Brotherhood, didn't they Muslim Brotherhood? Wasn't that have something to do with a guy going to a dance in Colorado?
Victor Davis Hansen
That was more than just decadence. He thought that they were condescending and American girls he thought were prostitutes, but mostly because they didn't want to dance with him, I guess. He was killed. They executed him. I don't know if it was Nasser, but the Egyptian government executed him. But, you know, another thing is that I think it's important that we have this because of the atomic bombs that Sammy and I talked about on our last podcast. We have this very rosy view of joy. Japan now is a good ally and they're a very impressive country. But this idea that we did something wrong to earn Pearl harbor or we were imperialist or no, they were butchering. They ended up butchering 16 million people in China. They had a holocaust in China.
Jack Fowler
Did you say they killed more?
Victor Davis Hansen
They killed more people than the Nazis did?
Jack Fowler
Yeah, they did.
Victor Davis Hansen
And they tried. They used biological chemical warfare. They experimented on American prisoners before they even had any experience of us. As soon as they took the Philippines, they were shooting American prisoners and beheading them. They beheaded sailors that they swept up on rafts at the Battle of Midway from the sunken American ships. And in a kill ratio, we said, well, we bombed them. And yes, we did bomb them, but you couldn't reason with that government. They were not going to surrender. They were not going to surrender. You could burn their industrial quarters, you could mine their harbors, you could drop one atomic. They were not going to surrender until we dropped a second one. And so it's a lot of mythology that they were reluctant, they were pushed in it because we were unfair to them. Then they fought. They were desperate people. All they wanted was rice and oil and a chance to have a seat at the world table. No, it was a very Nazi. Like they were comparable to the Nazis.
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Well, Victor, I'm glad you're here today to have discussed all these things, but you almost weren't here today, right? I mean, you had. Could you tell us about your car?
Victor Davis Hansen
Oh, I went down to. Yes, I had to give a final. I was giving a final down south. So I took the most dangerous highway in the United States per mile, driven the 99. And as all you 99 veterans know, there's two things that you shouldn't be on the 99. One is 6:30, seven in the morning, 7:38, nine in the winter because there's zero visibility with Thule fault. And I happen to be near Tuli era Tulare. And so I was driving with. I have not seen that type of fog in a long, long time. That was like I used to see in high school. But I counted two white lines maximum. And I was driving in the left lane behind a truck and that truck passed me, had passed me in the right lane and cut back in front of me. He couldn't have seen if he wanted to. He was going about 55, I was going about 40, but I was behind him thinking it was safe. Well, he hit something right ahead of me and I slammed on the brakes and slammed, just barely. If I had been in my truck, I would have hit him. And there was one car ahead of me and we went into the shoulder. And then I quickly realized that he was jackknifed almost across the whole. And this was one of Gavin Newsom's neglected projects where There is a 40 mile corridor roughly from Tulare to Delano, where there is no six lanes, it goes down to two lanes. And it's the oldest part of the 99 from my childhood. And so I quickly kind of went off to the right and I noticed something very quickly. You couldn't stop it from happening. Right. It was going to happen and happen because nobody could see anything. And these trucks were going very fast. Some cars were too. And I didn't think anything over 40 miles an hour was safe. They were going 55 and bam, bam, bam. I'm just sitting there. And then I, you know, I thought, well, I'm not going to make the final. I'm screwed. I almost got killed. Slammed on the brake. If I hadn't have been in my car, it's a newer car, it's two years old, but I literally got up in my seat and put all my weight on the brake and I could feel like almost like the back wheels were coming. It was. And swerving. It had anti lock brakes. A wonderful car. And I just missed the truck. And then I switched, swerved over into the left and then out to the right. And I was standing there and I just missed something on the left that I couldn't see. It was the guardrail. And then when I swerved like a semicircle on the right, there was a sign that I almost hit. And then I thought, what do you do now? You can't stop it. So there were four or five chain reactions going on. And then I realized that the car ahead of me who had suffered a little damage, I think he kind of went around, but you couldn't really go around this jackknife, all this mess because you didn't know what was on the right, the right part of the right lane and the shoulder. But anyway, the long story is we went around it and then a few cars got around it before the pileup stopped everything. And then I went I think 30 miles an hour all the way.
Jack Fowler
You were heading down to Pepperdine?
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes, yes, yes. But it took me almost five hours, usually three hours. But I got really angry thinking number one, here it is 2024 and Gavin Newsom really thinks he's running for president. And the two north south laterals in California of the most Traffic or the 99. And there is a 40 mile swath, 30 mile swath outside of Sacramento that's two lanes in each direction. There's one between Madera and Merced, there's this huge one south of tulare. And 4,8 fraction jack of the high speed Stonehenge mess. He could have had six lanes from Bakersfield all the way to the Oregon border. And he could have taken i5 basically from the Bakersfield area all the way up to Northern California. He could have had six lanes. The land is there. There's plenty of room to expand. And he won't do it either because he thinks that he wants to put everybody in a unionized mass transit or, or he's got other things that are more important like giving $500 million for healthcare for illegal aliens or expanding the port of entrance from Mexico and the San Diego border. But it just gets you really angry when you almost get killed on the 99 and this stretch of death, death row. And then you think the other thing that's really dangerous is. And I like truck drivers a lot, but there is something gone very wrong with the trucking industry. And I know that when I wrote about the 99 before, one of the officers of the American Trucking association wrote me and said, victor, we're way ahead of you. Most carriers tell their people to avoid the 99, it's too dangerous. But apparently not because I see more trucks. But here's what I'm getting at. Have you noticed this in your part of the world? If you have three lanes now, there are truckers who just get in the middle lane and they say, you know what? I don't believe 55 miles, I've got radar detectors. I'm going to go 65 and I'm going to take over the whole middle lane. Even if there's nobody in the right lane, it's mine. And then every once in a while, when there are people that should an automatic ticket in California, if you go in the left lane, left lane, right, they do that. They go around once in a while when there's two lanes, they get in the left lane to pass a slower truck in the middle lane. This really came to me on the way. So I had to give a lecture for Pepperdine final. And then I went over to Michael Finch's Horowitz Freedom center, which was really great. I spoke near the Getty and I had to go home before the fog. You know what the grapevine was like? Robot, the main transit over the mountains into the Los Angeles basin. It's five lanes. And here was the truck going uphill, far right, second lane was there. And three lanes are reserved for heavy traffic. You know, it was 4:00 in the afternoon on a Friday, as you can imagine what it was like coming out of Los Angeles. Here the truckers are Jack, they take the middle lane, the third lane. So you're looking as you look in a distance, there's a truck in the right lane, there's a truck in the middle lane, there's a truck in the left middle lane. And then there's only two lanes for the vast majority of vehicles. And I don't know what the ethos is of the new trucking generation, but it's basically, I've got a 15, 20 ton rig and I can do whatever I want. Because I'm going to take over the right and left on a two lane road. Because in the fog there were more trucks on the left lane where I was than there were cars. And you had this weird sensation. And I only got in the right lane because I almost hit a car that was almost. It was some person who was panicking. I was in the right lane and this person, I think had a meltdown where they were going about four miles an hour, couldn't handle it. And so I went right into the left lane and then I was behind this truck caravan that were going so fast I couldn't. I thought to myself, if there's anything up there, they cannot stop those. And of course, as soon as I thought that, they jackknifed. I don't know what it is. I think part of it is this will be very controversial, but when you have 27% of your population that was not born in the United States, you have an enormous challenge to educate people in traffic law, customs and traditions and vehicle safety. Because there were so many people on the side of the road that, you know that I. A lot of the truck drivers who were stopped were Sikhs that were from India. And I'm not trying to stereotype somebody, but there's something wrong. I don't know what it is, but somebody in our culture is not educating our immigrants to say, or other people all. I'm not blaming immigrants. I'm just saying that that's a force multiplier. They're not taught. We have so many people here that do not have driver's license in California. They do not have. I was talking to an insurance person, I spoke to an insurance group. She said the number of people given the exorbitant rates of California car insurance who don't drive against the law without insurance is phenomenal. Now you've got a lot of uninsured drivers, a lot of people who are driving who are illegally here without licenses.
Jack Fowler
Read the road signs.
Victor Davis Hansen
A lot of people coming from Asia, Africa, Latin America who do not know California or the American traffic safety rules or laws or customs and have not been trained. And you put that all together on a decrepit road system that the leadership is completely neglected as considered fossil fuel empowerment. That's what a highway is for them. You've got a prescription for a catastrophe and then you add any little rain, fog, anything into that mixture and you're going to get a lot of people killed. And that's what's happening. And the California drivers are just. They're not like they Used to be. They're insane. I was watching. Every once in a while I would see somebody in my rear view mirror. When we broke out of the sun for a few near Bakersfield, it started to get sunny. Then they would come up about 90 miles an hour out of nowhere, out of them. They were like fugitives fleeing a cloud. You'd look in your rearview mirror and bam, one of them would show up and it would just zigzag between traffic and you notice another thing. I don't know in your state, but I thought there were rules that you couldn't have a completely blacked out front windows. Can you do that in New York? No.
Jack Fowler
In Connecticut?
Victor Davis Hansen
No. You're not supposed to. I don't know if they're doing it. It's legal. But almost every car, you couldn't even see the person in it. The back window is black and the side window is black. So you have these anonymous people and these bullets that are just zooming around. Then you have these truckers all over the roadmap. And they're not like the old truckers, you know, that would blink their lights and let you in. This is something. These are younger people. They're off. I understand it's tough to make a living, but they are going. I didn't see in my. I did 11 hours of driving. I was in the car 11 hours. I had to drive over from pepperdine to the 405 and then we drove up to on the other side of the 101 for a lecture. And then I drove, as I said, five hours up and almost four and a half back. And the point I'm making is I didn't see one truck, not one that was going 55 miles an hour, not one. And I've talked to highway patrolmen and they've said to me that if they were to ticket every driver that was going over 5 miles an hour or 10 miles, they couldn't do it.
Jack Fowler
It would be everybody. I think it would be probably be 90% of the people on the road. Hey, Victor, I'm glad you did not get caught up in the jackknife Finger.
Victor Davis Hansen
What I felt like. Jack, you remember Das Boot, when Jurgen Faktow, the commander of the submarine at the bottom of the Mediterranean, they think they're all going to die. And then that brilliant engineer figures out how to redo the electric mortars and they pump the water and they start to pop up and they open up and they start Long Way to Tipperary. They play and they get the fresh air and he says, not yet. Not yet. And that's what I felt like. I screamed that to myself, not yet. They're not going to get me yet.
Jack Fowler
I've always said, you're indestructible.
Victor Davis Hansen
So, Victor, I felt like I did when I woke up and I was in a black room in Libya at the Red Crescent Clinic. And this very brilliant. I don't know if he's brilliant, but he was such a wonderful guy. To save me, I had a ruptured appendix and he operated, I think I told you, with Ethereum. And he looked over me and I thought I was in hell. It was dark. And I said, are you a. I was. You know, I had. I said, are you a devil? No. No, I'm not a devil. But I think the devil almost got you with this problem you had. I'm here to save you. You're well. And he holed up and said, Look, Mr. Hanson. And he had an appendix and a plastic. Plastic bag and alcohol.
Jack Fowler
Take it home. See if we can get it through customs.
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah. And I said, well, what is that? He said, the devil didn't do it. That's called gangrene, not the devil.
Jack Fowler
Well, Victor, you've been terrific again. I'm happy you've survived this. You've got more lives than a cat. I'd like to thank our listeners for doing just that, listening. Especially our new listeners. I want to thank those who.
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, thank you. Yeah, thank everybody for listening.
Jack Fowler
Well, I want to thank those who subscribe to Civil Thoughts, which I do for the center for Civil Society every week, every Friday. The email comes with 14 recommended readings. If you want to get it, go to civilthoughts.com and sign up. Victor on. We've been doing very well, listeners. Thank you. The show's been very highly rated. Some folks on Apple can leave comments and rate the show zero to five stars. Practically everyone gives Victor five. And some people leave comments. And here's. I'm just going to be 2, 2, 1. I'm going to do it in, I think, the tone of the person who wrote it. For the love of God, Jack, get to your point and then stifle your mouth. This is from Chips Tool one, who's titled it Jack Talks Too Much. Thank you, Chips O'Toole and then the great VDH. I always learn from listening to Victor speak. It's amazing knowledge that he has and how he communicates it to the listeners. And that's from jflotex82.
Victor Davis Hansen
Thank you. Feel better. I spoke to. I don't know, maybe 150, 170. I don't know. I didn't count them yesterday. They all said. They didn't say we listened to you on Fox. They didn't say, we read your column. They all said they listened to our podcast and they all had very nice things to say about Sammy. Jack. Jack and Sammy.
Jack Fowler
The great Sammy.
Victor Davis Hansen
Some of them suggested that. They said something about. I was. They said, you're changed because of the election. You're livelier, I confess.
Jack Fowler
Where's Eeyore? We miss Eeyore.
Victor Davis Hansen
I feel that way anyway.
Jack Fowler
All right.
Victor Davis Hansen
You've been terrific.
Jack Fowler
Thanks, everybody. Hey, we'll be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show.
Victor Davis Hansen
Bye.
Podcast Summary: The Victor Davis Hanson Show – "A New Trumpian World"
Release Date: December 10, 2024
Hosts: Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler
In the episode titled "A New Trumpian World," hosts Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler delve into a range of pressing political and social issues shaping the current landscape. From international conflicts to domestic policies, their discussions offer a critical analysis of recent developments and their implications.
Timestamp: [05:47] – [10:01]
Victor Davis Hanson opens the conversation by addressing the tumultuous situation in Syria, referencing a Daily Mail report suggesting that President Assad may be losing his grip on power as rebel forces, possibly supported by Turkey and other factions, advance toward Damascus. Victor analyzes the broader geopolitical ramifications:
Iran's Influence: "Iran has been defanged... Iran is looking around and he's saying, we don't really want to get involved with you, Hezbollah and Hamas."
Turkey's Role: Discussing Turkish President Erdogan's ambitions, Victor notes, "He wants to send troops to Gaza and recreate the Ottoman Empire," highlighting the potential for increased instability in the region.
Russia's Withdrawal: Victor draws parallels to Russia's rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan under US policy, suggesting that Russia's limited engagement in Syria exacerbates the chaos.
Trump's Impact: He emphasizes the return of Donald Trump as a destabilizing factor, predicting that Iran may hesitate to engage militarily due to Trump's hardline stance. "They're in a Mexican standoff right now... because Donald Trump is coming into office."
Timestamp: [17:18] – [20:26]
The hosts discuss a recent altercation involving Acting Secret Service Boss Ronald Rowe and Congressman Pat Phelan amidst the special committee investigating the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. Victor critiques Rowe's behavior:
Rowe's Outburst: "He is completely out of control. This shows you is that he is unstable and he shouldn't be anywhere near the protective cadre that's responsible for keeping Donald Trump alive."
Implications for Security: Victor expresses deep concern over the stability and professionalism of those tasked with presidential protection, suggesting that incidents like these undermine trust in the Secret Service's capabilities.
Timestamp: [10:01] – [28:09]
The discussion shifts to the contrasting leadership styles and policies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden:
Trump's Dominance: Jack Fowler notes Trump's authoritative presence abroad, referencing his behavior in France. Victor agrees, stating, "He's the virtual president right now. Everybody knows it."
Biden's Critique: Victor launches into a scathing critique of President Joe Biden, addressing perceived hypocrisy and incompetence. He argues that Biden's actions, such as pardoning his son Hunter, exemplify a disregard for the rule of law.
Comparisons to Historical Figures: Victor draws parallels between Biden's management style and that of fictional mafia figures, suggesting corruption and ineptitude akin to "The Godfather" series.
Timestamp: [24:38] – [28:09]
The hosts examine the arrest of Tanya Fernandes Anderson, a Black Lives Matter activist and Boston City Councilwoman:
Circumstances of Arrest: Jack Fowler questions the timing and method of Anderson's arrest, highlighting inconsistencies. Victor condemns Anderson's actions and affiliations, criticizing her as anti-American and hypocritical.
Broader Implications: The discussion touches on the rising narrative that branding political opponents as racist is becoming commonplace, arguing that this undermines legitimate discourse.
Timestamp: [53:05] – [60:02]
Victor and Jack draw parallels between contemporary political figures and characters from "The Godfather," emphasizing corruption and power dynamics:
Biden-Corleone Comparison: Victor likens Biden's political maneuvering and alleged corruption to the Corleone family's exploitation of American institutions.
Implications for Governance: This analogy serves to illustrate the perceived depth of corruption and the challenges of combating entrenched political interests.
Timestamp: [60:22] – [77:33]
Focusing on Donald Trump's anticipated actions during his first hundred days, the hosts speculate on policy directions and political strategies:
Energy and Immigration: Trump aims to reduce energy prices and impose stricter immigration controls. Victor criticizes California Governor Gavin Newsom's policies as a countermeasure to Trump's agenda, highlighting infrastructure neglect and socioeconomic issues.
Economic Policies: Discussion includes the potential for significant tax cuts and "swamp drainage," aligning with Trump's traditional platforms aimed at deregulation and economic stimulation.
Political Strategy: Victor suggests that Trump's approach includes utilizing non-traditional messengers to maintain opposition momentum and keep his base energized.
Timestamp: [67:10] – [97:20]
The conversation shifts to domestic concerns, particularly the deteriorating road conditions and traffic management in California under Governor Gavin Newsom:
Road Infrastructure: Victor shares a personal anecdote about a near-accident on California's Highway 99, attributing the danger to poor infrastructure and inadequate traffic law enforcement.
Traffic Violations: He criticizes the trucking industry for lane hogging and speeding, linking these behaviors to broader issues of driver education and immigration status.
Policy Failures: The hosts argue that Newsom’s focus on unionized mass transit and other priorities has led to neglect in critical areas like highway expansion and safety enforcement.
In "A New Trumpian World," Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler provide a robust critique of both international and domestic policies, emphasizing the perceived failings of current leadership and the potential for significant shifts under Donald Trump's renewed influence. Through detailed analysis and personal anecdotes, the hosts underscore the challenges facing the United States both abroad and at home.
Notable Quotes:
Victor Davis Hanson on Iran's Situation:
"They're in a Mexican standoff right now, and they're as growing unrest in Iran as there always is."
[06:37]
Victor on Secret Service Stability:
"All that shows you is that he is unstable and he shouldn't be anywhere near the protective cadre that's responsible for keeping Donald Trump alive one more day."
[18:23]
Victor Critiquing Biden:
"He really lost currency in this iteration of the Obama appearances because he lost his capital out there."
[34:12]
Victor on Corruption Analogies:
"The Corleone have great contempt for America, but they great use for America cynicism."
[53:28]
Victor on Road Safety Issues:
"That's a prescription for a catastrophe and then you add any little rain, fog, anything into that mixture and you're going to get a lot of people killed."
[90:39]
This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the episode, providing listeners with a thorough understanding of the topics covered by Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler.