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Victor Davis Hansen
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Victor Davis Hansen
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Victor Davis Hansen
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Victor Davis Hansen
Hello ladies. Hello, gentlemen. Welcome to the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor Davis Hansen is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marshabowsky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. There he is, looking all peppy and recover. Peppy. Peppy. And recovery. The endless recovery of Victor. He's out in sunny California. I'm Jack Fowler in the People's Republic of Connecticut. It's a beautiful day here. Important things to talk about to get Victor's take on. By the way. Yeah, did I mention I forget if I mentioned the date yet. It's Monday, July 21st. This episode will be up on the 25th. 4th. Victor, we need more elaboration Discussion intelligence from you on the Russia hoax story on the auto pen on the new nominee for mayor of Minneapolis. The Manhattan Institute has put out a Manhattan statement on higher education reform and the Democrats are going to do an analysis of what happened in 2024. But you can't talk about Kamala and you can't talk about Joe Biden. I don't know. Anyway, Looney Town. Well, we'll get to all these topics and Victor's take on them when we come back from these important messages.
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Jack Fowler
Foreign.
Victor Davis Hansen
Davis Hansen Show. I didn't mention. I'm just scatterbrained here today. I apologize. Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus. The web address is victorhansen.com you can subscribe. Why would you subscribe? Because when you do, you'll be able to read the two pieces, the exclusive pieces Victor writes every week for the Blade of Perseus. Hello. And also for the exclusive video. You know, folks, we are so high tech here. It's, it's, it's just remarkable. We are model.
Jack Fowler
You're making fun of my 150-year-old manger that is now a high tech studio.
Victor Davis Hansen
Built on what, eucalyptus?
Jack Fowler
Yeah, yeah. They're covered with sheetrock on this place. But yeah, it's got a nice sloped roof for the animals used to feed.
Victor Davis Hansen
The manger is like you, it is indestructible in the end. Anyway, $65 a year, 650amonth. You will want to subscribe. If you're a fan of Vict, you've got to subscribe. The Blade of Perseus VictorHansen.com okay, Victor, the Russia hoax, we talked about it in the last episode, but we need a little more take from you now. One of today's headlines is Tulsi Gabbard, the intelligence head who has unleashed these documents, putting out the documents that have been, I don't know, hidden, unexposed for the last few years. She said whistleblowers are coming out of the woodwork to talk about just what went down with Barack Obama, John Brennan, James Comey and the cast of characters. Victor, your take on the further take on this and also if you might compare it a little to that great scandal of Watergate. I mean, I think people, they shot horses, they shot people for far less than what is going on now.
Jack Fowler
That's a good point. I think all of our listeners are kind of bewildered. I am because a couple things Trump said, no, his revenge is a success, as we mentioned. But this is different. This is, it's of such a magnitude of what they did. It's like trying to destroy Mike Flynn ten times over with the president of the United States elect. I mean, remember, we've already gone through the collusion in the 2015-16 cycle. This is different. This is after he was elected. This was in the transition period in the first months of Donald Trump's tenure. And I know somebody said to me, I was at a place last weekend, a lot of people came up to me and said, ah, Donald Trump, he's tweeting too much. And I guess today Trump had some. He had Brennan Clapper and everybody in prison garb and profiles as if they're in prison. And he said, barack Hussein Obama, I understand what everybody's worried about. You shouldn't probably do that. But they tried to destroy him. They tried to destroy him personally, financially, psychologically, and career wise, and they just tried to destroy a elected president. There's a lot of clips that are going around today that I looked at, and it's just amazing for Hillary Clinton to have said, not just before the election, but afterwards. Seventeen, seventeen intelligence agencies. Seventeen intelligence agencies. Seventeen intelligence agencies. And then you hear Barack Obama, outgoing Barack Obama, lame duck in the last month. Well, 17 intelligence agencies said that Trump was, you know, working with. And then you have this clips of Clapper saying he's a Russian asset. And then there's Brennan, you know, and then there's Comey. 245 times, he can't remember. And he's assuring the president, the president of the United States, that he is not the subject of Crossfire Hurricane. And he was. So you add it all up, and the crux of the situation, as I said last time, is that the intelligence heads were told by the 17 intelligence agencies, their heads, that there was no proof that Donald Trump collud with the Russians to throw elections or was an inadvertent beneficiary of their efforts. And they were baffled, as we talked about last time, because Dutch intelligence tapped into them and they've tapped into Hillary Clinton's emails. And they found out that Hillary Clinton was blaming them for colluding with Trump, which they knew they weren't, but they were baffled why she was doing it until they, you know, they concluded it was because they were going to. She was trying to hide her own email exposure, which they exploited. So what I'm getting at is there's a paper trail. They all talk too much. James Comey, 245 times, when he was asked directly, he said, I don't know. James Comey leaked a classified document. James Comey, for the last four years, has tweeted, he's been on television. There's a whole Paper trail. James Clapper was a CNN consultant and John Brennan was msnbc. And they're on record again and again and again. And what we learn now is they were told after the election by 17 intelligence agency heads there was no collusion. And they deliberately, in the case of Brennan, may allegedly have destroyed that and just said, ignore that. And why did Brennan do it? Because they're going to start blaming each other, Jack. And so when Brennan destroyed this assessment or suppressed it and then gave a false assessment to Obama, he's going to say that he was told to do that by Obama because Obama, it's been reported that Obama said to his intelligence twins, Clapper, and I want this to continue. I want to develop this, even though they had been told there was nothing there. So it's going to be he said, she said, and it's just finally, it's the further evidence of the, the fall and further fall of Barack Obama. He was already discredited when he tried to rev up everybody for the failed Harris lecture, I mean, election. Then he gave a lecture to those black very enthused campaign workers and basically said in Marxist fashion, you're deluded and you're suffering from false consciousness because you're afraid. You don't know you're afraid, but I can, you know, read your mind. You're afraid to vote for a powerful black woman. And then, you know, he gave this embarrassing. Did you see that podcast he gave with Michelle? It was talking about. They were talking, as Michelle's want is, she always blames people for her unhappiness, her insecurities. So she doesn't like powerful black men. So she was saying that in association with the crisis of men subtext on spoken Black men, who 70% of them don't have a two parent family, that you have a community takes a community to raise a man. And then she interviewed Barack Obama. He came on there and he said, well, you need to have some close advisors. You need to have some close confidants that help out. Meaning I had no father. And I turned out to be the genius that I am. And the reason was I had a gay professor. And this gay professor took me under his wing and became a surrogate father. And I'm thinking, Barack, the whole dark Internet is covered with John Marshall Davis pornographic career, his tutelage of you, the Pakistani roommate at Occidental. It's just a swamp of accusations that you're gay. So why would you go out and say that traditional fatherhood is not enough, that you need a surrogate person and that surrogate person that saved you or helped you was a gay professor. I mean, maybe it's true, but all he's doing is fueling that whole narrative. And maybe when you couple that with his anger or her anger or their talk about divorce or separation, that is sort of a. Philip. He maybe wants people to know that he's unhappy. I don't know. But it was a disaster. I was listening to it when I was driving. It was a disaster. It really was. And so he. It's pretty clear that Barack Obama hated Donald Trump, that he was shocked when Donald Trump won, that he knew that Hillary had prompted. Because Brennan told him that Brennan said in writing that Hillary Clinton had prompted a false narrative to destroy Donald Trump. And that's what he was. That's what the intelligence that came, I guess, from somebody talking about this Russian source. But it's pretty clear to conclude that Barack Obama was president of the United States, and he ordered these intelligence heads to ignore what their agencies had found. That is nothing. And to pursue a narrative that he felt would destroy Donald Trump of which he had no evidence for. And then he unleashed James Comey and John Brennan and James Clapper and Victoria Nuland and a whole bunch of other people. And then they spread this thing. Bruce, Nelly, Orr and a whole bunch of them. James, a beggar. They all spread it. And that was by design.
Victor Davis Hansen
George W. Bush leaves office after two terms with political tail between his legs.
Jack Fowler
Right.
Victor Davis Hansen
His numbers are low. He's turned the government back over essentially, to. To the Democrat Party. And Barack Obama does the same thing. And George Bush goes quietly into the night.
Jack Fowler
He went out like the gentleman he always was. He was. I've met him a few times. People disagreed with a lot of things he did, but he had a professional code of conduct, and he didn't go from the sideline. Even though he didn't like Trump, he wasn't vocal about it. He said one time at the first inauguration, that was weird. S H I T. Remember that? When he heard the populist MAGA narrative. But he didn't do what the Never Trumpers did. He didn't do what Mitt Romney did. Mitt Romney became a loudmouth. Never Trumper. And then for a brief tenure in his career. What was his name? It was Pancho or Rolando something. He had kind of an Anthony Weiner fake name on social media. They all liked Hispanic Carlos Danger. Is it Carlos Danger?
Victor Davis Hansen
I think so, yeah.
Jack Fowler
Anyway, he wanted Donald Trump's endorsement for that Utah seat, so he asked and Trump gave it to him and then as soon as he got it and got elected, he voted to convict Donald Trump.
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, I guess what the point I was trying to get at or throw up there for your take was, you know, we could say George Bush acted in a presidential way, put presidential in quotes and many people are critical of Donald Trump being unpresidential in many of the things he does. For example, the tweet, the so truth social message. You just. But maybe the king of being acting in a non presidential fashion is Barack Obama, who as an ex president tried to destroy the next presidency despite his own terrible performance as president.
Jack Fowler
That was one of the themes I wrote in the first Trump book, the Case for Trump, that would you rather have somebody that was crass and crude and told the truth? And I'm not saying it's an either or I know there's gradations but. Or would you like sober and judicious and eloquent and mellifluous Barack Obama lying and trying to destroy people's lives. And that's what he did. And he's the only thing that's different now. Jack, you get the impression that cnn, msnbc, NBC, abc, npr, they're not, they don't have the same stature, their megaphone isn't as loud as when Obama capitalized on them. And the people around Hillary and Obama, Jake Sullivan, Anthony Blinken, Ben Rhodes, they're all disgraced. So he's lost a lot of his stature, he's lost a lot of his subordinates ordinance, he's lost a lot of his outlets. It's just a wild west now on the Internet. He can't control it. And so the idea that he's going to give an interview to the New York Times, anybody cares, it doesn't matter. Barack, you're out there and you're going to sink or swim on what the truth is. It's all going to come out now. It's all going to come out. I don't think they're going to do anything to him because all they'll have to do is just have a New York or Washington D.C. judge and jury and he'll get off. He could, you know, do anything, but he's going to have to account for what he did and that's going to silence him because the moment he opens his mouth, as he customarily does on social media every couple of days, people are going to say, if I were you, I wouldn't talk given what you're doing. People see everybody. James Comey, for example, he's Always talking about how crude Donald Trump is. But he was the one that, as we said last time, arranged this, you know, 80s and he's all of these spies. John Brennan said he was head of the khakistocracy and he said he was a Russian operative. James Clapper accused him of being a traitor. These people are. Just because they wear ties or just because they have letters after their name or they have fancy titles doesn't mean they're not scoundrels. They're all scoundrels. They weaponize the government. And you know how you know they weaponize the government? Because if you. I'm serious, Jack. If you, as I just did, if you Google weaponize and Barack Obama and government, it'll have Barack Obama warning about other people. That is Trump weaponizing the government. That's what comes up because they project.
Victor Davis Hansen
My wife's under the impression that from youth people always would say, now everyone be quiet. Like she's in the second grade. Everyone be quiet. Barry has something to say. And he just seems to have been raised in this tradition that everything that came out of his mouth with pearls of wisdom.
Jack Fowler
Remember the biography of him? I looked at part of it by the famous civil rights historian. And when he was in his prep school in Hawaii, he was kind of a mediocre seventh or eighth man on the team, but he was always demanding the coach let him in for more playing time. And he had an outsized. Remember how he had that little mem when he was president, that he was a great basketball and he was following the final Four. He and Reggie Love, the ex baseball player, basketball player, melded together somehow. And the point was that he really wanted to let us all know that he was a great athlete. But he was the same type of personality, always more outspoken than his abilities warned.
Victor Davis Hansen
We saw when he threw out the first pitch, I think it was a White Sox game. We saw what kind of an athlete he was.
Jack Fowler
Hey, Victor, you mentioned that to George Bush's first pitch.
Victor Davis Hansen
The World Series. Yeah. Beautiful.
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
Victor Davis Hansen
Hey, you mentioned media. We're going to get to that in the auto pen. But first for our listeners feeling tired, foggy or running low on energy lately, you're not alone. And it might be more than just stress as we get older. Our cells don't make energy like they used to. And that's why more and more people are trying to NAD and methylene blue. These are helping people boost energy. Clear brain fog and stay focused. You can now get both from all family pharmacy. It's quick. The doctor's prescription is included and no insurance is needed. Plus they carry over 200 other meds like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, antibiotics, your daily prescriptions and more, all online shipped straight to your door. Go to allfamilypharmacy.com Victor to check it out and use the code Victor10. That's V I C T O R the number one, the number zero. Victor10 for 10% off, that's allfamilypharmacy.com victor code Victor10. Take care, stay sharp and thank you to the good people at all Family Pharmacy for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show. VICTOR let's back into the auto pension story by seeing how the media has covered it and our good friends I Love Media Research Center. Brent Bozell, who's I don't know if he's if he's been confirmed yet or even up. He's not. The President's nominated him to be ambassador to South Africa. But here's a headline. Abc, cbs, PBS Censor Biden's Auto Pen Scandal. NBC offers a scant 34 seconds. Here's the first few paragraphs from the story. On June 18, Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings into whether former President Joe Biden was actually in charge. Given his clear mental decline, a focal point of the investigation was the concern that the auto pen was being used for executive orders and pardons without Biden's knowledge. All four broadcast networks, abc, cbs, NBC, PBS ignored it. There wasn't any reporting of the topic until a July 13th New York Times story that prompted a brief 34 second mention by NBC in the month of coverage. ABC, CBS and PBS have yet to devote a single second to the Biden auto pen scandal on their evening, morning or Sunday roundtable shows. VICTOR maybe nobody cares because nobody watches them anymore, but the media is the same old media.
Jack Fowler
I didn't understand that, you know, Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon went to jail when they were subpoenaed to Congress. Why didn't they just say, okay, I'll show up? And then every time they ask him anything, they'd say, I can't. Under the Fifth Amendment, I can't testify. And I guess they had too much dignity or they didn't want to give the impression that they were lying or hiding something, as these people did who went up and took the Fifth? Remember Eric Holder when they asked him about Fast and Furious? He wouldn't really he wouldn't produce documents. He wouldn't testify. They held him in. He wouldn't come even. They held him in Contempt, just like Steve Bannon. And they did a referral like they did to Merrick Garland. There was always two rules. If you were a left wing, prominent person and Congress called you to testify, you just said blank you and nothing happened. If you were Bannon, who was a close advisor to the President of the United States, or Peter Navarro was one of his chief domestic advisors and you called them and they didn't show up, they put you in ankle cuffs and handcuffs, tried to humiliate you. So nothing.
Victor Davis Hansen
Sandy Berger stole documents.
Jack Fowler
He stuck him in his crotch. Remember he stuck him in his crot. Yeah, he did. And all these people, again, there's two different scenarios here. There's a people who can be crude and loud and they're honest and they make no bones about their views of Trump, a Bannon, of Peter Navarro. And then there's all of these sober, judicious, careful apparat of the apparat and Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, James Clapper, James Comey, John Brennan, Barack Obama. They're very carefully. And they. No, no, no, no, no, no. They're just scoundrel. They really are.
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, the auto pen thing, Victor, it's just so disturbing. Again, I mentioned before that freaking judge in Scranton who somehow was, was sending kids to, to this foster care jail essentially and getting kickbacks. How does a guy like that, what did he do to merit a presidential pardon? Never mind all the murderers who got off.
Jack Fowler
Well, it's really, the staffers were getting, we don't know, they were getting emails, at least one or two of them about who to pardon, whom to pardon and whom not. So Biden didn't even know any of them. So that, that's there and yet they won't testify. All they had to do was say, yes, I got an email from somebody, but I assume that Joe Biden had orally approved it. They can't even do that. And God has money.
Victor Davis Hansen
Somewhere along the way this, you know.
Jack Fowler
Like, just think about what we've been through. So I was speaking to a group not too long ago and somebody in the audience, a very prominent person, a former high office holder, said January 6th, January 6th, January 6, January 6th. And I said, do you understand that the two biggest attempted coups in this country's history were the Russian collusion dash laptop disinformation efforts that affected the 2016 and surely affected the 2020 election and the first 22 months of a presidency that was almost destroyed by a complete lie. Are you sure that you want to say that when Joe Biden didn't know where he was. And he had a whole surrogate team that had. And how did he get elected? He got nominated first by a cabal that got rid of the opposition and then he was appointed as a waxing effigy as good old Joe Biden. And he lived by the coup and he died by the coup. They just called him up and said, you're done after that debate. No, excuse me, everybody. They said, joe, you have to have a stress test. I know you say you're perfectly fine, but you're going to have a historic debate. You're going to go full Clint Eastwood and bait Donald Trump so that he would foolishly give you a very, very early debate so when you blow it, we can get rid of you and get somebody in there. And then they had a coup and got rid of him. Put on Harris. Not one person voted for Kamala Harris. She didn't get, I should say, not one delegate. And they just anointed her. Remember Joe Manchin for about what, 24 hours? Senator Manchin, are you thinking. Yeah. See what the convention does. I'm here as a moderate alternative. No, no, no. That was it.
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah. Train left the station. Hey, Victor, I want to ask you about some of these prominent people. And then we've got this Minnesota Minneapolis mayoral race that seems like it's going to echo what's happening in New York. We have. What else? We have the Manhattan statement to bring up the Democrat Party self analysis. And we'll get to all these things when we come back from these important messages. We're back with the Victor Davis Hanson show. So I'm not putting you on the spot because you just mentioned earlier you talked to some people recently and I'm curious, these folks, if you could take a temperature about Donald Trump and his successes here in the second term financial two, the markets are up, etc. And there's a. Let's assume there's a general position on him by these people you talk to. Are they more positive about him than you would have thought they would have been? Are they less or are they resentful?
Jack Fowler
It's almost. I must have spoken to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, I would call them Hoover Institution supporters all over the country, maybe in five different states this spring. And then I probably spoke to other like groups and I say all together, I must have spoken to 2 or 300 of what we would call the bicoastal elite, maybe center right. And they all say the same thing. I don't like Trump's tweets. I just don't like it. I don't like him. But you know what? I can't find one thing he's done wrong. The border, military recruitment. I didn't like that trade stuff. And then the tariff and my God, the economy didn't crash, it's doing well. And I got sick of the bias at pbs, but I don't. My wife can't stand it. That's what they say. But gosh, it's so much better than the first term. They all say that. And the subtext of all of them is when you start looking at, as we said earlier, known unknowns. We know there's things in action right now that we have never seen before. We have never ever seen a million people self deport. We have never seen zero illegal aliens. Think of a million people deporting. The vast majority of them public assistance. And we're kind of or 1/5 of the way getting rid of 500,000. Just think of the economic benefits of that. If you deport people who are wards of the state or you get rid of 100,000 known criminals and we don't know about the trade. And as I said, May was an aberrant date. There was more revenue than there was expenditures. And everybody said, well, that's a. May is always peculiar. It's peculiar, yes. And you're absolutely right, it may not. It may be reversed in June, but it's peculiar in a way that we haven't seen since 2017. That's eight years we have not had a single May where you had more revenue coming in than going out. I looked at the Wall Street Journal today, Jack. It's schizophrenic. I thought, who are you people? Let me look at your names. Oh, yes, you were the ones in March. Recession, recession, Trade war. Trade war. Stock market collapse, inflation, maybe slow stagflation. And business leaders upbeat on the Trump economy. Yeah, yeah, because they, they're starting to see that if you get Doug Burgum said the other day, not, I had said 10 to 10, he thinks 15 trillion in new divestment investment. Silicon Valley, as I said, is nine trillion in market capitalization. Nine trillion. So you're talking about one and three quarters of Silicon Valley. One twice as large, Almost, almost twice as large investment. Two Silicon valleys plop down all over the country if that happens. And then you hear Doug Burgum, you know, he makes the. He's a very smart guy and he was on tv and you know when he says there's a hundred trillion dollars in assets, they go crazy. But what he's talking about is why are we worried about Canadian lumber? When California used to have 30 mills, it only has two. We have all this lumber, we have all these rare earth minerals we're going to open. We have all this coal, we have all this oil, which is not, it's not being utilized. And we're doing this, we're doing this German subsidies type, wind and solar when we have all these. And so there's things out, whatever what I'm trying to get out. There's things that are going on below the radar screen. We know them, but we don't know the effect of them. We don't know the effect of what China has to pay in tariffs to stay in our market. We don't know the effect of all these endowment taxes and all these surcharges down, you know, 10 billion here, a billion there. It adds up. And we don't know the effect of deregulation. He was on television about three weeks ago just saying that the permitting in the Department of Energy and the Department of Interior has gone from six months to three weeks. Just think of the economic. So there's. It's a holistic approach of deregulation. Tax cuts, the promotion of AI as a productive money making, money, savings, new type of technology, robotics, foreign investment, closing the border, the military getting its recruits with volunteers, the deportations. Add it all up and it will have an economic lift. I really do, you know, on the.
Victor Davis Hansen
Cultural front, Victor, this is just an anecdote. It's a Bronx anecdote, involves two of my sisters who live in a certain area of the Bronx. It's a mixed, little bit of Irish left Dominican, it's, etc. But the last few years under Biden, you just want to blow your brains out at night, especially on the weekends. Just mad house. Not criminal necessarily, but a madhouse. And I saw my sisters the other day, went down there and I said, how's it going? Because they wanted to get it during the summer. They just said, we got to get out of here. It's just crazy. Everything's quiet and they both. One of them's a bit of a lefty. Sure. It has to do with self deportation. Like the dynamics of the neighborhood have changed.
Jack Fowler
A million people add up. And I would, you know, I've been really ragging if I could use that word, Gavin Newsom. But Gavin should take a deep breath and say, my best friend is Donald Trump. Maybe he thinks that and he can't say it because if half of the illegal aliens are in California and There's a million deportation. Just say 300,000 self deported. We were broke. So basically Donald Trump is taking wards of the California welfare system off Gavin's hands. And when you, you know, I drove by sections of high speed rail recently, there's not one. Our former colleague Rich Lowry has a very good column on it. Very good. And it's about the boondoggle, the not one foot of track lake, $30 billion. That was supposed to be the price for the whole thing. And you know, 90,000 people Merced, 400,000 Bakersfield. And we spent $30 billion and we're gonna go from nowhere. I like people from Bakersfield, but compared to what most major rail hubs is Bakersfield and Merced don't qualify. But the point, I mean if he cut him off, Gavin can say, oh my gosh, we were almost ready to finish high speed rail and Donald Trump cut it off. So I don't have to spend any more. I can't spend any more state money. He, that guy deported people. Oh wow. What's our medical budget? Oh, it's not so much in the red. And maybe Donald Trump will say, you know what you're going to on federal lands in California, we're going to develop some natural gas or something. And my God, oh wow. It's gonna, we have the highest unemployment of any state. It's well over 5% now. And then Trump is his punching bag. But I think deep down he thinks I'm gonna ride the Trump wave and it's gonna help me get out of the self created mess that I have inflicted on California and maybe I can use him.
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, it's kind of hard to do with headlines like this. I sent this to you just before we started recording. Here's a headline from the this from the Washington Free Beacon, a piece by Andrew Kerr. Gavin Newsom pushed private foundation to donate $500,000 to Anti Ice to fund police groups as he did in, in 2023, Newsom asked the James Irvine Foundation, a private foundation in California, to donate $500,000 to, to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a group that supports defunding the police, et cetera. I know how he, how he, you're right, Victor. He should latch onto Trump's successes.
Jack Fowler
He reminds me of, he reminds me of Jefferson Davis or Calhoun, you know, these separatists, insurrectionist nullificators, because that's what they did. They were trying to solicit private people to resist in the 1850s and the federal government and they confiscated federal land and they said the federal law did not apply within Alabama or Florida or. That's what they did. They're doing exactly like what he did. They tried to use their powers, federal and state, to destroy the authority and the domain of the federal government in their states. And that's exactly what he's doing. He's a neo confederate. He really is. And if anybody else tried that from the right. And I've mentioned before, you know, oh, the five spotted lizard is no longer. Oh, I squashed him with my bulldozer in Wyoming. Oh, there was a federal endangered species. Not in Wyoming, there isn't. We just go ahead and smash those little guys. He would go. You know what I mean? It's such an outrage, you know.
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, you. You've been. You're the first one. And I've done it consistently on the New Confederacy. And it's.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, I wrote too many articles about it. It's something, you know, I said to Sammy, I think it was you that I. When I walk to an airport, I see a particular person eye me at a distance.
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes.
Jack Fowler
Did you see all the. The that type of profile up in Maine where Justice Roberts has a little. Yeah, they were. They were protesting with their puff vest and kayaks and their Abercrombie and fish outfits on kayaks. And they were all fitting. I thought, I've seen every one of you at an airport. You give me that stare about 500 yards away, they. And you start to come forth like you're a little leopard or something.
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah. How they plan that, Victor, Their little social media group. And let's. We'll get our.
Jack Fowler
Probably imagine. I thought now, wow, these are the same people in Nantucket. They said Donald Trump, illegal immigration. He's against it. He's against a good man. Oh, wow. There's all these people from Oaxaca and Martha's Vineyard. Let's get the charity boxes. Let's get all of our HOKA shoes that we can't wear. Let's get all of our puff vest. Let's get everything we can and get it over to them immediately. Oh, I feel so good. I gave Manuel My $200 used sneakers. Hey, Manuel, there's a bus outside. See, you wouldn't want to be. Get over to New York. Get over to Chicago. Not in my name here. That's how they think. It really is. I'm not being. I'm not caricaturing.
Victor Davis Hansen
Oh, I very fond of. I'm fond of John Roberts. And I know Mrs. Roberts is a graduate of Holy Cross, so. So is Mrs. Fowler. So am I.
Jack Fowler
So as I said before people criticize John Roberts on our side. But what is it now? Is it 16 or 17 out of 20 Supreme Court decisions that involve the lower district courts have gone Trump's way. It would have been impossible without him. It really would. So he's very quietly enforcing the law and the law that favors Donald Trump and that if he's so bad, you wouldn't have all these Karens kayaking around his summer retreat, defaming him and lying about him. You know what I mean? So he's. I think he's a sympathetic figure. I've always thought that.
Victor Davis Hansen
I'm going to go get my kayak and drive up there and defend. Defend his dock. So. Hey, Victor, let's talk about. Before we take another break here and get some other subjects, the mini. His headline, minneapolis Mayor who oversaw Black Lives Matter riots loses Democrat backing to Somali American socialists. This happened on Saturday. He lost. Who was it here now? Jacob Fry.
Jack Fowler
Remember him? He was about as far left as you could get in 2020. And when they were burning and all the fumes were wafting into Tim Waltz's wife's open window, remember?
Victor Davis Hansen
Do you remember him groveling before some meeting about the police?
Jack Fowler
Yes. And I remember going out and looking at the fire and some worrying about whether the people who were letting the fires off were okay.
Victor Davis Hansen
He is now he may run a la New York, where current mayor, incumbent Mayor Adams, is going to run as an independent. Frye, who may be the conservative in the race compared to Omar Fatah, 35, Minnesota state senator, who won the endorsement of the Democrat for Farmer labor party. He got 60% of the votes from the delegates at the convention on Saturday. And he is a complete freaking leftist. I don't know why they call him a socialist.
Jack Fowler
I think he's so strange that a immigrant, Muslim radical leftist would have a name that was close to Fatah, the name of the Palestinian radical terrorist group. But anyway, he's, he's running and when you look at the pictures of his supporters, it's that same kayak crowd that support him, the former Labor Party of Minnesota. And you want to go. What goes through their mind? I got mined. And maybe socialism will impoverish everybody else and they'll stop all growth. So I don't have a windmill. I mean, you know, an air turbine thing or. And I don't have a solar farm right next to my Minnie's Minnesota Forest retreat. Or when I get on my Tesla. Not now Tesla, my ev. And go down the freeway, it's not too clogged with these Hoi polloi, diesel pickups or so I don't know what it is, but why would they vote for a socialist when they're all affluent and they're all products of capitalism? And that's been a question we've all asked ourselves and usually the answer is they have reached a level of affluence where they're never responsible or they are protected from their ideology. It's always inflicted on poor people and middle class people, but not them.
Victor Davis Hansen
It's important, as it was for our generals Milley and others. Victor, as you remember, talked about many times too, to investigate this concept of white nationalism and it's how prevalent it is and infective, etc. I wonder why they don't have the same desire to investigate how prevalent these weirdos are on the left and their role in society and what makes them tick.
Jack Fowler
I don't know. You mentioned, you know what I was thinking these pardons were a little overdone. But when you think about it very carefully, they were kind of inspired because Anthony Fauci, I think you could make the argument light under oath and I think you can make the argument that if there was any one American responsible for gain and function viruses in China, it was him by recycling money from Echo Health or allowing transfers of key instrumentation. And then you think of Mark Milley, he took a pardon too. And I thought, I was just thinking to him the other day, what if Mike Flynn had never been the target of Crossfire Hurricane? Remember James Gomez? We just went in there and got Michael Flynn. We didn't, the guys didn't even know that. He didn't even have a lawyer. Can you believe it? He was laughing about taking, destroying that man's career. And what if Michael Flynn had right now during the Obama administration we were talking about, well, what would the left say if Michael Flynn called up the Russians and said, listen, I'm a key four star general and I am in very high position in centcom. Now if I get an order from Barack Obama that I think is dangerous and he's dangerous, I'm going to call you guys up first and warn you. What would they do? They would have had him hung by the heels and that's what Millie did and he got a pardon. So all these people did things we've never quite experienced and I don't think they're personally, I don't think any of them are going to be held to account. I think they're going to be embarrassed. I think they're going to have to spend a lot of money on their lawyers. But I don't think anything's going to happen to them.
Victor Davis Hansen
I agree with you. They'll have to wait till the afterlife. But that's the reality of America. And I've said this before, Victor, you've said it before, too. I mean, what commies head of Bulgaria, Poland, East Germany, did any of these ever face consequences for their madness and mayhem and murder on this earth? And they didn't. They got away with it. Nobody gets away with it, though, in the end, nobody gets away with it. Victor, let's talk about one more political thing and then we're going to take a break and then we're going to get on some, round out the show with some, I think, important higher education topics. So the last political thing, here's a headline from the Daily Mail from the other day. Insane Oversight in the Democrat Party's autopsy of the disastrous 2024 election. Democrat Party plans to dissect what exactly went wrong in the 2024 presidential election. With two glaring exceptions in the analysis. The After Action review commissioned by the DNC won't question the timing of President Biden's decision to stand down before the election. That's one thing. The review will also steer clear of finding out whether Kamala Harris stands was the best pick to replace Biden following his disastrous campaign performance. So, Victor. Yeah, we're going to have a study that's going to be a half high, neat study. Any thoughts about that?
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Did Trump or one of Trump's advisors or friends say it's like going to a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad? I think it's like a guy has a heart attack, he goes in for a bypass and they instead concentrate on taking his appendix out. I mean, the whole purpose of the autopsy is to show you why they lost. And they have the polling data. The polling data shows two trends. Hispanic males and black males abandoned them in the millions. And that was the margin of error in places like Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada. There's no doubt about it. And the second thing, where certain issues killed them, defund the police, but especially open borders. So if they were going to do a disinterested analysis, they would say these are the 70, 30 issues we've got to address and we've got to mark directly ask Hispanic men and black men why they voted for a multi billionaire from Manhattan. And if they were wise, they could do a third thing. They could take a close analysis of Kamala Harris's a her word solid where she was incoherent for the first 40 days, she didn't even have an interview. She hid c. She was buying endorsements for from a bunch of over the hill celebrities and her staff was blowing through money in the millions of dollars and jets and flying around. So it was the worst managed campaign. It was one of the worst candidates. But they can't do any of that. She's a black woman. You don't dare say that illegal immigration is bad. The Green do deal. Don't ever question it. Everybody wants to defund the police. So again, there's McGovern in 1919 72. They're going to do it again. And then I was listening to Eric Swalwell, Fang Fang's former dupe, and Beto o' Rourke and they. I was driving for six hours yesterday across the very wealthy areas, but basically, basically across the detritus of the California infrastructure. And I was just listening. Beto o' Rourke was really weird and so was Eric Swalwell. And they had cuts. Their analysis is they weren't mean enough. We got to get mean. We've got to get tough. We've got to get mean. We've got to get tough. We've got to go for the throat. You did that. You tried to destroy Donald Trump. You impeached him twice. You tried him as a private citizen. You indicted him 93 times. You raided his house. You raided Melania's underwear drawer. You took away her banking privileges. You took him off the ballot. You tried that in 25 states. You lied in the biggest scandal in history, 2015 and 16. You invented an entire hoax to destroy a candidate. Hillary Clinton hired Christopher Steele through three paywalls to do what? To destroy Donald. You did everything imaginable. You turned a riotous bumpkin, weirdo demonstration on January 6 into insurrection. You lied, said five people were murdered. You did everything that was dirty, angry, over the top. And what's the analysis? We didn't do it now. And that's what turned off people. You can, you know, I'm doing this. I'm finishing the manuscript of the second analysis, the Fall and Rise of Trump. And boy, I've been looking at every one of those indictments and everyone, every single time there was a mug shot, an indictment, Donald Trump's. In 10 days, his polls went up one or two points.
Victor Davis Hansen
Right?
Jack Fowler
Yeah, yeah.
Victor Davis Hansen
That which does not destroy me makes me stronger literally in this politically with him.
Jack Fowler
Yeah, yeah, he is.
Victor Davis Hansen
All right, we have, we have a hard break at the in 20 minutes, so we're going to take a final commercial break Here. And then I got two topics to pose to Victor. We're going to wrap it up with his genius and brilliance on some higher, higher ed issues. We'll do that when we come back from these messages. We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen show talking Victor on the 21st of July Monday. This episode will be up on Thursday the 24th. Victor, first headline. Samuel Abrams wrote this piece in National Review. Throwing conservatives a bone won't fix what's wrong with Harvard. Conservative faculty are almost impossible to find at that campus and that absence has created a warped off, often anti intellectual climate on campus. In response to the intense and deserved political legal pressure the administration, Trump administration, is applying to Harvard, particularly with regard to the presence of campus antisemitism and of a progressive activist faculty intolerant of other views. There is now talk of Harvard's creating a conservative center on campus to promote viewpoint diversity and fend off these concerns. I don't know Victor, I think it's a joke. It's not even too little too late.
Jack Fowler
I mean there's efforts to do the same as, you know, at the University of Texas as well as the new campus at the University of Austin. But my point is, and they can be good things for conservatives, but this is what the left does when they're confronted with the reality that they had basically McCarthy era loyals. If you are going to get this job, you must state what you have done in the past, the present and the plan for the future to enhance diversity, equity, inclusion. That's what they do. If you don't answer it or you don't, you know you're not hired. So the result over these years with affirmative action, DEI, all that stuff is 95% of these elite campuses have liberal faculty. 95% of the faculty, I should say on these, all of these elite. So why don't you try to junk the loyalty oath? Why don't you try to get different? They all love diversity. I mean they define diversity as hating white males. But why don't they make intellectual diversity? So instead they want to make a little Balkan like enclave like the Hoover Institution at Stanford. The problem with that is that when you put all the conservatives in one place, two things happen. They're completely marginalized and they have zero effect on the run the day to day operations. So the Hoover Institution sits right in the most choice location. I'm on the 11th floor of the tower. I look over the, every time I'm in my office, I look over the campus. I have zero influence. The whole institution has zero Influence. And if you don't believe it, we just had a 900 page analysis of anti Semitic written by one Hoover fellow. I don't think it will have any effect. Very liberal Hoover fellow. And they found that it's epidemic. The Hoover Institution is there, but it doesn't seem to affect the fact that they put on their website 9% of the admit these last four years were white male. 9% or they don't seem to have any effect that they were charging 50% surcharges. They have racially segregated dorms, segregated, excuse me, theme houses and racially segregated, oh, excuse me, auxiliary or additional graduation ceremonies. So what I'm getting at, that's the one thing they don't have, they won't make, they don't serve the purpose of trying to make the university more liberal. They just put them all in one place called like a Gulag. And then the second thing, yes, the second thing that happens is when you have the Hoover Institution or a Harvard conservative figure, there will be people with some means that will step up on the conservative side and try to donate. So half of the Hoover budget comes from roughly, I won't give you the numbers, but half the number comes from the endowment income and half comes from annual giving. And when the Stanford professors look at Hoover, they say, oh I hate that place. And then that's just for show. The second thing is, well, those guys don't have to teach if they don't want to. They're pure researchers. They have nicer facilities than we have. They probably get paid more than we do. They have wealthy donors that might want to fund my program. Hey, guess what everybody, you people at the who, I'm kind of, you know, I've been thinking, you know, I considered voting for Mitt Romney once. I like John McCain, that's what they say. And then so they try to infiltrate. And you know our former director John Racin, this is not private. So he had on this desk a helmet helmet, like a World War II helmet. So when I would see him going to the faculty summit to defend the Hoover from an attack, he'd always wear his army helmet to it. So his purpose was that we have to maintain the integrity of the institution and it's an adversarial relationship and they were always trying to undermine that and they still are. And that's what will happen to the Harvard center for Harvard Conservative. Oh, I hate those people. Look at those. Oh wow, they've got a lot of money. They got nice stuff. I'm kind of conservative. And then I'll try to get in there and then I'll kind of get a guy that's a little bit, just a little bit more liberal than I will and then he'll try to hire a guy that's just a little, little bit more liberal and pretty soon, you know, birds of a feather flock together. So that's a bad idea. That's a bad idea. They should, they should demand that statement we're going to get to about the Manhattan statement. That was what they need to do. They need to have intellectual diversity across the faculty and they don't have to say, well check a box. If you're a conservative on these. They know who is who. They do know it. And that's how they got 95% left wing. They did that. All they have to do is use that same intuition to ensure that, that it's 50, 50. But they'll never do it.
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, you take a state like Texas, by the way, Victor, my opinion, who cares? But here it is. There's some of the. You mentioned the University of Texas, Civitas Center, Texas, Florida, I think north. Not. Not. I think North Carolina and Tennessee have all created their state colleges have created these classical.
Jack Fowler
University of Colorado at Boulder. Yeah, they have one.
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, they have, they have professorship that they give. But these places, these four other schools have created actual centers that are going to be like the Damajones and you know, the Matt Spaldings of the world could hypothetically be there. But so I, I like the alternative. But you're right, there's a ghetto aspect to it. We're going to house all this here where it should be throughout. But back to say Texas, you know, state that's clearly conservative through and through state legislature, Republicans. How can the board of regents in these red states don't act in a way in North Dakota, South Dakota to see that these woke state university systems are unwoken. There are alternatives, political alternatives in some places anyway, the Harvard's private, so what can you do?
Jack Fowler
I think that they're put on the board for reasons other. For reasons that range from getting their children into the university or their grandchildren to getting publicity that enhances their career for their resume in the corporate world to getting a building or some honorific art rubbing shoulders and telling people I was with the president of Harvard today, kind of Jeffrey Epstein, itis, you know, that's what he was after. And you know, I don't want to give it away. I mean I mentioned, I gave a lecture, I also gave a recent lecture about surcharges and academia. And this one person at this, at the point where I said and you know, 55, 60%, some of these surcharges. Private foundations that just give grants do not allow you to do that your university to take that much. And I got a grant from the federal universe from a couple when I was a Cal State professor. I was angry they took 10%, you know what I mean? As I said to them, I'm not using any other facilities that I. Other than what I'm teaching. I'm doing this in my own time. Well, you use your office. No, I said I write at home. Well, you're doing. Using the library. I said I use the library to prepare for class. What's the difference if I check out an extra eight books? So what I'm getting at is that when you. I was giving this lecture and this guy got up and he said I am, I am on the board of trustees at Blank Blank this very. And you don't know what you're talking about. Oh, you're one of these guys and you want to cut cancer research. And that's what you are. You just want to cut. You want to. You're all neh nih badge. And I said things. Are you aware that there's some studies that suggested that 20 to 30% of federally granted scientific studies are not reproducible that they find a result? And I'm talking also about the present. The former president of Stanford University, his findings and a co author were not reproducible, meaning other people who took him at his word could not find the same results as he did. And I said are you sure that you think 55% is necessary? Are you aware that the number of grants that can be distinguished, such as a new hormone off label use has amazing ability to prevent head and neck cancer type studies versus a dei? This underserved community didn't get the vaccinations as quickly as Martha's Vineyard kind of stuff. So that, you know, just his attitude. So they get all hysterical, they get all hysterical about all this stuff. But the board of trust, I don't have any. One of the finest Prince, one of the finest presidents I keep mentioning, Max Nikias in the context of an ambassadorship for Cyprus, I hope. But he was. If you look at actual money raised and reform at USC, he. And you look at the test scores and GPAs of US USC applicants. But more important importantly, people admitted it was not just comparable with ucla, its supposed intellectual superior in Los Angeles, but. But it was superior under his direct. And what happened during the. Me too. There was somebody on campus that was allegedly groping women as a gynecologist, something. And he had a. You know, he had a investigative team look at it. But he didn't fire him that day. You know what I mean? Mean. And it was like a lynch mob. And so I And the board of trustees did nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Every time I see a board member of that esteemed body that did nothing but just sort of, oh, well, can't make it today. During the. That. I just can't take it. I saw the same thing with Scout Atlas. I would have like to say something. Oh, maybe he was right. Maybe. I don't know. Lockdowns were pernicious. But I didn't have the information at the time that kind of. I'm sick of that.
Victor Davis Hansen
We lived through the Oxbow incident in a way, culturally.
Jack Fowler
Exactly. We did. Nobody spoke out against. And there are people who were. Me too, that I wasn't a big fan of, you know. But what's his name? Garrison Keiller. Okay. He might have been something you can discover, but to take his books off, backordered on public tv. What they did to him, Mark Halpern, may have been provocative, but they destroyed that guy's career. And now he's got a podcast. That's really good. Yeah, he is. I really admire him for coming back like that. But they just. They had this idea that if two people who were grown adults entered into sexual banner or sexual congress and one of the people was dissatisfied after the fact or I'm not saying all of them were like that, but then that was the equivalent of sexual assault. It didn't make any sense. Well, I don't know.
Victor Davis Hansen
That's why the Lord's prayer says avoid the near kingdom.
Jack Fowler
We had a. You know, just to finish that. One of the. When I was a teacher in the Cal State system at an unknown location, there was an unknown professor whom I knew whose name would not never. But he was a upright Christian in a place where atheism and agnosticism and whatever you said about him, he never, never would even flirt with a woman. And he had a very attractive returning student who was divorced and followed him to class. I only know that because I taught in the class after him. So he would walk out with his class. And sometimes students, we all think they're victims, but actually a lot of them are not. They're victimizers in some cases. I know there's power asymmetries, but when you see an older, older man, he was probably near 70. And he was very polite. And she was probably 35. I would watch her and she was not coming to class. I just noticed sometimes he'd walk out. I think he gave her a bad grade, as I remember. And then she got angry because she thought that she had talked to him on the way out of class. So I was on the department committee, and you know what her charge was? That he pinched her. He put his hand here once and patted her. But instead of just patting her on that, he said, I'll see it. Don't worry about your. And he might have done this like a little massage. And we had a department hearing, and we barred him from teaching that year and took away all ability to get a sabbatical or merit pay. And I swear to God, I swear that his blackish gray hair turned white, literally white. And it was such a shock because he was such a devout, upright Christian. And here he was with the stigma that he had been sexually harassing. You know, it's sort of like the other day, AOC said, makes sense Donald Trump would have written Jeffrey Epstein because he's a known rapist. I'm thinking, no. He was found to have engaged, according to the jury, in sexual assault, which could be anything from touching you on the head or massaging your back. But he did. The judge who was wrong in saying they were a quill and he was not. And I think he was reprimanded. And that cost what, ABC was it. George STEPHANOPOULOS said that 11 times. And they paid. I don't know what it was, $16 million. So I thought to AOC, you just lied to the nation and said the President of the United States was a rapist. He wasn't. He was never convicted of rape. And so I think there's a move against all this, that people are just people and men and women are different, but they have to be treated with respect. But in the area of flirting and all of this, it's not a felony if a person respects the wishes of the other person. And again, when I heard. When I got to campus after farming five years, I thought sexual harassment was really this. I really did. I got up there and I'd seen it in graduate school. I'd seen it two cases. But when I got up to Cal State, I thought, well, wow, there's all these nerdy little guys in high school that were punks, and then they got a PhD and they were using their power and. And they went to class and there was some naive young girl, 18 or 19, who was beautiful, and they Said come in my office for office hours. They slammed the door, put a chair against it and chased them around the office. I think that happened something like that twice. I didn't think it would be some 35 year old woman with two kids who husband left her and she wanted to get a renewed education and she was starting to date some guy who was a professor but wasn't even teaching her right and that that was a taboo and they went after people like that and I thought wow, what is that about due process?
Victor Davis Hansen
Hey Victor, we have two minutes left because we have a hard out. So we're not going to talk about the Manhattan Statement but I just want to want to recommend folks go to City Journal which Victor is a is a contributing editor to City Journal it's go to the Manhattan Institute website I should say and Chris Ruffo who as Victor knows knows him and Chris won the was one of the grant awardees of the recent Bradley Prizes. He is the man at dead center on fighting this woke idiocy on higher ed and he drafted the Manhattan Statement on higher education that says has so many bullet points on it but it's very powerful and it is a an action plan to do what Victor said not to create little ghettos or here you know we can all go hide at this little center but to total reform.
Jack Fowler
I'm not saying the Hoover Institution's a ghetto. How could you ever.
Victor Davis Hansen
You know I, no, I, I you.
Jack Fowler
Know when you have Milton, Milton Friedman, Tom Sowell it was a great. It's an intellectual powerhouse but my point is it took Herbert Hoover years to develop that autonomy but if you. And it's only because of people like Tom Sowell or Milton Friedman or Shelby Steel that it was able to retain its integrity. But it was under constant assault by Stanford and that's what happens. And although I don't I can't even name all of the conservative people groups that just cave finally but yeah but.
Victor Davis Hansen
I know no knock on Hoover. I don't equate Hoover to this I think of like that Zephyr Institute or the Buckley Institute at Yale or the Witherspoon which are all good places but.
Jack Fowler
They have tendency.
Victor Davis Hansen
Institution should be like them not you're going to find conservatism.
Jack Fowler
One little outline on this conservative campus institution. Anyway that's yeah every yeah every is it every. Every conservative institution will always drift right wing. Was that John o'? Sullivan?
Victor Davis Hansen
The o' Sullivan Law? Unless it's explicitly conservative it will eventually yes. Well we've seen that in foundations Pew McArthur.
Jack Fowler
That's why I like the Bradley Foundation. I've been honored to be on it over a decade. But every, every year we go back over the mission statement. What would the Bradley Butters say? Let's look at not what we think they would say. What did they actually say? And how would you take that literally to apply to today's grant making? And let's not get on an agenda that that's not what their donor intent was.
Victor Davis Hansen
Right? Absolutely.
Jack Fowler
But that's what happens to these grants.
Victor Davis Hansen
Pew, who made the money that funds the Pew Foundation? He was on the back cover of the first issue of National Review. Way to go, Bill Buckley. Go. And now his billions are being spent on the left.
Jack Fowler
John D. Rockefeller and the Rockefeller boys and the Ford foundation, all of them. They all started as captains of industry and they ended up promoting socialism.
Victor Davis Hansen
You have been terrific. I know you got a, you got things to do and I appreciate all the wisdom. Thank the folks that take the time to leave comments. Thank the folks that go to civilthoughts.com and sign up. For Civil Thoughts, the free weekly email newsletter I write, go to Victor Davis Hansen's website, the blade of Perseus, victorhansen.com Do sign up there and subscribe. Victor, you've been terrific. Thanks so much. Thanks everybody for listening for watching. We will be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show.
Jack Fowler
Bye bye. Thank you everybody for listening.
The Victor Davis Hanson Show - Episode Summary
Title: Obama as ex-President and Conservative Ghettos on Campus
Release Date: July 24, 2025
Hosts: Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler
Co-Hosts: Occasionally joined by Sami Winc
In this episode of The Victor Davis Hanson Show, co-hosts Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler delve into a range of pressing political and social issues. The discussion navigates through allegations against former President Barack Obama, the ongoing Russia investigation, the Biden administration's actions post-presidency, and the state of higher education. The conversation is interspersed with critiques of media biases and the handling of political scandals.
Timestamp: 05:22
Jack Fowler initiates the discussion by revisiting the "Russia hoax," asserting that recent revelations by Tulsi Gabbard and other whistleblowers have shed new light on alleged misconduct by high-profile figures like Barack Obama, John Brennan, James Comey, and others. Fowler draws parallels to the Watergate scandal, emphasizing the magnitude of the current situation:
"They tried to destroy him personally, financially, psychologically, and career-wise, and they just tried to destroy an elected president."
— Jack Fowler [05:22]
He argues that intelligence agencies, under Obama's administration, were directed to pursue a narrative of collusion with Russia against Donald Trump despite lacking evidence. Fowler contends that this orchestrated effort mirrors post-Watergate tactics aimed at undermining political opponents.
Timestamp: 13:30
Victor Davis Hanson contrasts the presidencies and post-presidential actions of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He criticizes Obama for allegedly attempting to dismantle Trump's presidency through manipulation of the intelligence community and media outlets:
"Maybe the king of being acting in a non-presidential fashion is Barack Obama, who as an ex-president tried to destroy the next presidency despite his own terrible performance as president."
— Victor Davis Hansen [14:54]
Jack Fowler adds that Obama’s influence on media such as CNN and MSNBC has waned, contributing to a fragmented information landscape where "it's a wild west now on the Internet."
Timestamp: 21:41
The hosts scrutinize the media's handling—or lack thereof—of Joe Biden's auto pardon scandal. Citing a Washington Free Beacon article, they highlight how major networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS have largely ignored the scandal:
"All four broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS ignored it. There wasn't any reporting of the topic until a July 13th New York Times story that prompted a brief 34-second mention by NBC in the month of coverage."
— Jack Fowler [21:41]
They criticize the media for selective reporting and failing to hold political figures accountable, suggesting a deliberate suppression of unfavorable news.
Timestamp: 39:50
The conversation shifts to the Minneapolis mayoral race, where incumbent Jacob Frey loses Democratic backing to Omar Fata, a Somali-American socialist. Hanson and Fowler express confusion over the Democratic Party’s endorsement of a figure they describe as "a complete freaking leftist":
"I don't know why they call him a socialist when they're all affluent and they're all products of capitalism."
— Jack Fowler [40:46]
This segment underscores their concerns about the Democratic Party's direction and the rise of more extreme candidates within its ranks.
Timestamp: 51:17
A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to critiquing the liberal dominance in higher education, particularly at elite institutions like Harvard. Fowler discusses the Manhattan Institute's efforts to promote viewpoint diversity and the challenges faced in creating conservative centers on campuses:
"When you put all the conservatives in one place, two things happen. They're completely marginalized and they have zero effect on the day-to-day operations."
— Jack Fowler [51:17]
Victor adds that attempts to foster intellectual diversity often result in conservative enclaves that lack real influence, likening them to "Gulag-like" ghettos.
Timestamp: 62:25
The hosts touch upon the handling of sexual harassment cases within universities, advocating for due process and criticizing the current climate which they perceive as overly punitive:
"I'm sick of that. We saw when he threw out the first pitch... All these scandals, and the boards of trustees did nothing."
— Jack Fowler [63:29]
They share anecdotes of professors being unjustly reprimanded, emphasizing the need for fair treatment and accountability in academic institutions.
Timestamp: 68:38
Towards the end of the episode, Jack Fowler highlights the Manhattan Statement on Higher Education, praising Chris Ruffo for his efforts in combating "woke idiocy" on campuses. He underscores the importance of comprehensive reform rather than creating isolated conservative centers:
"It is a powerful action plan to do what Victor said not to create little ghettos or hide at this little center but to total reform."
— Jack Fowler [68:38]
Victor concurs, emphasizing the necessity of intellectual diversity across the entire faculty rather than compartmentalized efforts.
Timestamp: 70:26
In their closing remarks, Hansen and Fowler reflect on the broader implications of their discussions. They reiterate the importance of challenging dominant liberal narratives in politics and academia, advocating for a more balanced and accountable approach across all sectors.
Jack Fowler:
"They tried to destroy him personally, financially, psychologically, and career-wise, and they just tried to destroy an elected president."
[05:22]
Victor Davis Hansen:
"Maybe the king of being acting in a non-presidential fashion is Barack Obama, who as an ex-president tried to destroy the next presidency despite his own terrible performance as president."
[14:54]
Jack Fowler:
"When you put all the conservatives in one place, two things happen. They're completely marginalized and they have zero effect on the day-to-day operations."
[51:17]
Jack Fowler:
"It’s like trying to destroy Mike Flynn ten times over with the president of the United States elect."
[05:22]
The episode of The Victor Davis Hanson Show presents a critical analysis of recent political events, media biases, and the state of higher education from a conservative perspective. Hanson and Fowler emphasize the need for accountability, intellectual diversity, and transparency in both political and academic institutions. Their discussions are marked by a deep skepticism of mainstream media narratives and a call for reform to address perceived systemic biases.
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