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- [00:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
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- [00:26]
Jack Fowler
Balance on a required finance agreement too.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Bill credits end if you pay off devices early.
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Sammy Wink
Ctmobile.com hello and welcome to the Victor Davis Hanson Show. This is our Weekend Edition where we do something a little different. On our middle segment today, Victor will be talking about one of the seven wonders of the world, the Colossus Arrows. We will then also do or start off with some of the current news. And the first thing I thought we should talk about is some of the leaking about Biden from his his staff. So stay with us and we'll be right back.
- [01:01]
Jack Fowler
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- [02:00]
Sammy Wink
Welcome back to the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor's the Martin and Nelly Anderson Senior Fellow in Military History and Classics at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marshcibowski Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. You can find him at his website, victorhanson.com and it's called the Blade of Perseus. So please come join us there. If you're new, you can get lots of free things on the site, but also you can buy a subscription for the VDH Ultra articles that come out three times a week. And that will cost you $5 a month or $50 a year. So we hope that you can come join us. So, Victor, there's been a lot of news coming out, I guess currently the knives are coming out, as the Daily Mail said it, about what was really going on in the White House while Joe Biden was there. And it appears that he had. Was not at the helm for a lot of the time.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Not at the helm. Never heard of a euphemism. Didn't one person say he was dead?
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Sammy Wink
Yeah, yeah.
- [03:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
I mean, that's. If you're dead, you're not at the helm. So, yes, it's coming out now. And why, before we even go on, why is it coming out? Because, remember, we had this discussion earlier, Jean Corrine, Jean Pierre said it was a cheap fake. Yes, they're doctoring, but they're picking and choosing videos. Is it sharp as a tack or fit as a fiddle? She said, I don't know. And Kamala Harris, do you remember right after the debate when he imploded on the stage with Donald Trump and went into those brain freezes and mute and wandering eyes and growling? And by the way, he only was cognizant, only cognizant when he was angry. Every other time he was incoherent. But you get him on Magna or Trump, and he came to life because he was full of hatred. And right after that debate, Kamala Harris said, he's dynamic. I resent this. And then right after the Robert her report, she said, this is vicious. This is unprofessional. Remember that Robert Her, Robert Herr said, I can't unindict this person even though there's evidence he committed a felony, because he would come across as a sympathetic old man, confused, befuddled. They got angry at that. They should have been saying, yes, he committed so many felonies. He took out these papers for 30 years. He had them in unsecured locations. He showed classified material to his ghostwriter. The ghostwriter destroyed evidence. They could throw the book at him. If this was Donald Trump, he'd be in the can for 30 years. But he got out because he was able to convince people of the truth that he's non compos mentis. And yet they got mad at that. So everybody knew it. I won't mention the show that I was on, but I said very early on, in his confusion, he looked reptilian and the host reprimanded me and I haven't. I didn't go on very much after that. There was a climate you don't, this was on a conservative outlet. You don't make fun of. It's not that you're making. You don't tell the truth. So that narrative, and all of us wrote about it, that mysteriously Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg disappeared in that critical period from March to June of 2020 after Biden had lost the Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire caucuses and primaries and he was running way behind. And the Obamas said, you know, we got to get just like they did. He was created by the sword and he died by the sword. They had a kind of a virtual coup and said only Joe Biden from Scranton can provide a moderate facade. Bernie, get out. Here's what you're going to get. You're going to get to run the agenda. Pete will give you transportation. Elizabeth will let you sound off and we'll get your, whatever your causes are. And the Obamas will coordinate with their plants inside and Jill and Biden get to play act as if they're first couple. And that's what happened. And it was going all right until finally they could no longer lie anymore because of that debate when he simply imploded on the stage. Donald Trump didn't have a great debate. He had no debate. He just every once in a while said, Mr. Trump, how would you like to reply? What did he say? I don't understand it. Translate. And that was kind of good, that Trump was very good at that. But the point that I'm making, everybody knew that he could not fulfill the duties of president and they all knew they were lying. So then it begs the question, why are they telling us now?
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Sammy Wink
Yes.
- [06:54]
Victor Davis Hanson
And the answer. And the Wall Street Journal, by the way, had the same type of article.
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Sammy Wink
Oh, really?
- [07:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, it did. It did. I just read it. And it said that the aides had to baby him. They had to deny access to the Cabinet. In four years, I think he only had nine cabinet meetings and Trump had three times that many or four times that many. And he was incoherent. He could only talk during the end of the day. He was too out of it in the morning. He didn't like to travel. He got confused. They looked at the Robert her tapes and it was incriminating. They didn't want to release the, the audios of those transcripts because they, you know, he didn't know when his son died. And then they said, how dare, how dare he mention Bo, that prosecutor. No, Joe, you did. You brought him up. The prosecutor was surprised and noted that only because it was on your volition. You wanted to demagogue the death of your son, which you have done so many times, giving us inaccurate information, claiming he died in a combat zone, claiming he did not die of a brain tumor. But in theater you've said on occasions. Or that he was polluted. He died of pollution, in burn pits, fumes. So you brought it up. And then her only remarked in his report that since you brought it up, you didn't even realize the date that he died. You'd forgotten it. Anybody who's lost a child never forgets the date the child dies. And so he was demagoguing Robert Herr when he was culpable.
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Sammy Wink
Yeah. Do you think Dr. Jill was actually president? Kind of.
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Victor Davis Hanson
That was the thrust of the Wall Street Journal article, that she was coordinating with Ron Kane, the chief of staff, and then filtering the input from. And we knew who that was. It was Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer with occasional zeal from the squad group, the Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders squad people. But I get the impression that it was the Obamas that cooked up this whole shenanigan of having the Bidens run for office. I say Biden's because he's not able to do anything on his own. So the question then is why did it come out now? And I guess the simplistic reductionist answer is because Joe Biden can neither hurt nor help anybody. So the media thinks, maybe I'll get an award, maybe I'll get access to Joe Biden, maybe I'll be in the White House. Nah, he's a lame duck and he wouldn't know if I was there anyway. Well, if I say anything about what's really going on, he might hurt me. He might call up my boss and get me fired. No, nobody listens to him anymore. Well, if he can't help me and he can't hurt me, I'll tell the truth. But I'll do it in a cowardly way, as I always do. I'll leak. And that's what they're doing. Nobody comes on the record. It was a devastating revelation. What they basically said is the Obamas and the Clintons and all of that bunch like themselves and like power more than they do the American people. There is a final irony. Do we remember Donald Trump his first year when ex Obama, Pentagon lawyer Rosa Brooks, 11 days after he was inaugurated. Vote in foreign policy. We've got to get rid of Donald Trump. Got to get rid of him. He's been in office 11 days and I think 60 House members introduced impeachment. He's been there 11 days. It's time to impeach him. And what did she say? That the remedies were A, impeach that take Too long, B, 25th Amendment. He's not all there. Nah, you got to get the Cabinet. It's kind of messy. Ah, military coup. Yes. We can get military officers not to follow orders. That's what she wrote.
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Sammy Wink
Yeah.
- [11:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
And scary. Yes. And so what they did was almost immediately, they. They created this men that Donald Trump was crazy. Remember, he fed. He told everybody to drink bleach. He said that people who died at Normandy were suckers. There was one person who said that, 25 in the room denied. He said that he fed too much fish, the koi fish. With the Japanese prime minister.
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Sammy Wink
Oh, yeah. Didn't he dump out the whole bag? He followed what the Japanese minister.
- [11:41]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, but only Donald Trump is. And they did that. And so they came to the conclusion. Was her name Bandy Lee? She was a pseudo psychiatrist from Yale. And they dragged her in the congressional testimony and they said, yes, she's crazy. You need a forcible intervention for you, you know. And then she wrote a book. I mean, she edited a book. And they paraded around Capitol Hill for a day, and then they said, he's crazy, crazy, crazy. We got to know he's not there. So then Ron Jackson, the doctor, said, we can give him the Monterey Cognitive Assessment. And then from only Trump can do. Yeah, it was hard. Most people couldn't pass it. Of course I aced it. I can recite numbers backwards and forwards, and I know the difference between a dromedary and a camel. It's easy. And they had little pictures. He went through it. It was really funny. And of course, then people suggested Joe Biden take that test later. So they always project, everybody remember that whatever they feel insecure or they are vulnerable, they project that culpability, insecurity, whatever, exposure under their enemies. So they knew that Joe Biden was non compos mentes, and they knew that when they were thinking of running him against Trump the last two years of Trump's tenure. So then they just said, well, we know that Joe's senile, but we'll say Trump's senile. And that's what they did. Now we know that they were all how cruel to do that to the American people, to say, well, the guy that we gave the nuclear codes to and the guy that was in charge of destroying our deterrence abroad by giving $50 billion in Afghanistan. And the guy who now is taking credit for a calmer Middle east after he tried to repress Israel. That guy they knew at the time was incapable of handling the job of President.
- [13:44]
Sammy Wink
Victor, let me welcome back a sponsor, OpenPhone. OpenPhone is the number one business phone system. They'll help you separate your personal life from your growing business. For just $15 a month, the cost of a few coffees, you get complete transparency and visibility into everything happening with your business phone number. OpenPhone works through an app on your phone or computer and integrates with HubSpot and hundreds of other systems. It's affordable and easy to use. Right now, Openphone is offering 20% off of your first six months when you go to openphone.com that's O P E N P-H O-N-E.com Victor for 20% off six months. Openphone.com Victor and if you have existing numbers with another service, Openphone will port them over at no extra charge. And thanks to OpenPhone for continuing to sponsor the Victor Davis Hanson Show. So, Victor, I have a few things that I think are kind of a mosaic and maybe you can make sense out of them. The first thing is, and it's news that the Congress hasn't yet passed their funding bill and there's a lot of pressure because it's due on Friday. And Trump is saying that the bill that they have, it's too much spending and policy extras. So he's encouraging the Republicans not to pass it. And the second thing in this mosaic is Doge met for the first time Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. And then the third thing in this mosaic is Newsom standing up and claiming that California has been doing the work of Doge before Doge was even created, which Doge is, remember, intended to, to increase government efficiency. So I thought all of those things are happening in the financial, government, finance at this moment. And they kind of, I can't tell you what sense they make or what nonsense they make.
- [15:58]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, the problem is that we spent $7 trillion the last four years and we're exceeding the authorized budget. So you have to get a continuing resolution to continue funding the government. That means let's translate into borrow money because you don't have it. And traditionally it works like this. It happens a lot. And traditionally the Democrats then depending on who holds the House and how many rhinos there are on the Republican side or there are no conservative Democrats anymore, but the Democrats then say this, we want these many trillions billions put in there. And it's usually Stuff for government employees trying to bankrupt Social Security by extending it to people who otherwise in traditional terms wouldn't get it, like government employees who have their own federal pensions, etc. And they run it up and then they say to the Republicans, hey, if you don't improve this at the last moment, then you're going to shut down the government because that's the only way you can stop us. If you shut down the government, we're going to say you're throwing people in wheelchairs and the elderly over a cliff and you're cutting Social Security even though Social Security may be exempt. Well, that's what they do. And then the Republicans react in predictable ways. The majority say no, we're not going to be held up by you guys. We know you so well. So we are going to have just a simple continue resolution. We're going to just authorize the existing budget. We'll try to cut a little bit and then we'll have this fight next year. But there's always some, oh my God, I don't want to go back to my district and said that I'd cut people dole off and I'm going to be let's just give them what they want. We can go home for Christmas. So unfortunately, Speaker Mike Johnson was vulnerable to that allurement and he de facto agreed. Well, you can't agree to that when you have Vivek and Elon so prominently saying we've got to cut all these money. There's you're telling to them, you're telling both of them, we promise kind of, sort of, we'll listen to you kind of sort of cut some a lot of billions in next year. But right now we're going to borrow a lot more billions and they're saying you don't have to. Did you read the 1500 page pulp? It's full of stuff that's not necessary. And it's just the opposite of what you think. Speaker Johnson, if you do right now show that you have a backbone and you make the argument to the American people, the taxpayer, you don't have to pay for all this crap, we're not going to add stuff on lard it up, just stick with us and we can get some concessions from the Democrats. If you do that, we will have more clout next year because they'll say, you know, they started from the very first opportunity they had. But if you don't do that and you cave and you approve all this stuff, they're going to throw it back in your face. Hey, well, the Republicans voted for. They can't cut. They just added 200 million here, 400 billion there. Now they want to cut. They're hypocrites. So they've got to stand firm and take the heat and cut and Johnson will lose his speakership. They only have one or two seat margin. Foolishly they appointed too many people from the House of Representatives to run agencies and cabinet asses. And then this mysterious California late vote. I don't know what happened. California went 57% from Biden. But the after the deadline mail in ballots came in and they were up to 65%.
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Sammy Wink
Wow.
- [19:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. So. And that the down ballots destroyed our congress people in our area. Mike Garcia was a wonderful congressman. John Duarte was a wonderful. And they lost just by a hair's breadth. And we had lost in Orange county. Very suspicious. But the net result is that exuberance where they said they were going to have 223 seats or 12 vote margin. Those two factors combine and they have no margin of error and they've got a lot of loose cannons that they have to pacify. They can't. They have to be like the Democrats. They have to stick together and they're not known to do that. So we'll see.
- [20:35]
Sammy Wink
Well, what did you think about Newsom claiming that his California government has been doging even before Doge came?
- [20:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
Let me think about that $76 billion annual deficit, probably $1 trillion in unfunded liabilities if we count all the various pensions that are unfunded. And he gave $500 million to illegal aliens during COVID And he has threatened to make borrow another 25 million to use lawsuits to resist the roundup that will include the roundup of felonies. Felons, excuse me, in California sanctuary city jurisdictions. How about the $15 billion blown on high speed rail or what is the Medicaid budget? Medical budget? I should say it's almost about over 30% of the budget. So every time he says that we are warm caring people and we don't do this, then he raises taxes and the result is right now we a 13.3 income tax rate at the high point and we're 76 trillion.
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Sammy Wink
Aren't they talking about 6 billion?
- [21:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
And Ron DeSantis in Florida has no income tax and he's running a surplus.
- [21:58]
Sammy Wink
Wow.
- [21:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
And you tell me how that's true. And I, I drive on Florida. I've driven on Florida freeways compared to the 99 or 101. They're paradise compared.
- [22:08]
Sammy Wink
And, and aren't they thinking of raising the highest tax rate to 16.1 or something.
- [22:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
They're claiming they're going to do that. If they do that, there's going to be max mass exodus. Because you add that with the federal and the Obamacare and the payroll taxes, you're getting up to 60%.
- [22:25]
Sammy Wink
Yeah, nothing for it.
- [22:27]
Victor Davis Hanson
And then that's on top of the highest gas taxes. The Air Resources Board just without any public support, no vote, no legislative approval, just by fiat, said we're going to have 62 cents more in gas taxes because of our environmental blended requirements for fuel and the prior taxes. We're the most expensive place to drive in the nation.
- [22:54]
Sammy Wink
Wouldn't the state assembly claim that you don't have the right to do that.
- [22:58]
Victor Davis Hanson
And put some majority of left wings. They're not Democrats in California. They're left wing fanatics. And they're all of the coastal jurisdictions and districts. They have a super majority in the state senate, the state assembly. They have a. They have another. We've had 12 actually. It'll be 16 years of Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom. These are very wealthy people. That's the problem. They're very, very wealthy Bay area people and they're never subject to any of the consequences of their ideology. Had you had gotten Gavin Newsom said, we're going to get. And he did. We want illegal aliens to come here. We're the most welcoming, fair, high minded and everybody in Palo Alto and Menlo park and Atherton and Malibu said, oh gosh, aren't we nice? We're so wonderful. However, if he had said we're not going to burden Mendota, we're not going to burden San Joaquin, we're not going to burden Parlier, we're not going to burden Selma, they're already broken. We're not going to dump a bunch of people from the poorest regions of the world into their school districts, their health care facilities. We have a better idea. We being ultra liberal in Malibu have so many vacation homes, so many. And we're going to have a volunteer effort to put people in them. And Stanford University, where I work in the summer I just walk by those dorms and there's a few programs, but most of them them are empty. Thousands of beautiful rooms that could be accommodating. We let Hamas supporters camp four months with tents. If we can do that for many of them who are foreign students, why doesn't the Student Radical Council say, you know what, not in my name are we going to deport people. So we declare Stanford University's Free speech area, a campground, just like we did last year. Please camp out. And why doesn't Gavin Newsom said, I just bought a nine million dollar mansion. It's got a beautiful lawn. And I'm going to start a program that all government servants and former government servants with big lawns shall host illegal immigrants which they welcome in. So, Joe, your beach house. We could put about 20 families in front of me. Beach house. And Barack, you have, I keep saying, a 2,000 gallon propane tank and you've got 20 acres. I think we could get 5,000 people in there. Jerry Brown, you were for this. You're up in Grass Valley and a pleasant retreat. Why don't we send 10,000 illegal aliens to camp out on your Grass Valley estate? Barbara Streisand, share. You've got those beautiful homes in LA Malibu area. Unless you've sold them, you could put them 200 there.
- [25:52]
Sammy Wink
Well, they probably still have them. They moved to England, so they should have.
- [25:56]
Victor Davis Hanson
They say they did. Richard Gere maybe, or one or two of them. They're not going to do that. They're going to say, I'm going to move, I'm going to move, I'm going to move, I'm going to move. I'm going to stay here. That's what they do. They always do that. It's a performance art.
- [26:08]
Sammy Wink
Love this Malibu Beach.
- [26:09]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Where else are they going to live? Just remember one thing about Malibu. They passed a law, the left did that said that every California Californian had a right to go to a beach and have public access across private property. That was a coastal commission. So every certain hundred yards you have to have access. That means a rich person has to scoot over a little bit and give the state access for people like us. And when you go to Malibu, as I discovered when in my contemplation of my teaching, I wanted to take a little break and drive across Malibu. I noticed something about those very nice, liberal, caring people. They had bougainvilleas and they were kind of growing into those spaces and they had spikes about 3 inches long. And I thought, why would these actors want to deny the poor access to their beach? They're just going to walk by their mansions. I thought, oh, when you go on the beach, you look at their mansions. And they would have to see in front of their beautiful $50 million states, people from Guatemala, they might urinate on the beach, they might inject drugs, they might defecate, they might fornicate like homeless people. And you have to support that, but only in the abstract. That's how the left thanks everybody. And that's why they lost election, because finally the right way woke up and said we're going to expose these people. And when Ron DeSantis and Governor Abbott dreamed up that idea, why do we burden our own communities when the people who were behind this in Martha's Vineyard, Chicago and New York get off with a free pass with no burden of accommodating 12 million people and they started busing them at that point, you know what happened in Chicago and New York.
- [27:59]
Sammy Wink
Yeah. Well, Victor, let's go ahead and take a break and come back to talk a little bit about the Colossus. Rhodes. Stay with us and we'll be back.
- [28:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
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- [28:27]
Jack Fowler
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- [29:00]
Sammy Wink
Welcome back to the Victor Davis Hanson show. You can find find Victor at X, his handle is D. Hansen and at Facebook on Hanson's Morning Cup. So Victor, I don't know much about the Colossus of Rhodes, so I'm looking forward to your discussion of it.
- [29:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
You know, we talked about these wars from antiquity to the present. We went through in depth World War II for six or seven episodes. We've gone great literature of the west, but I thought we would do a different type of cultural exploration and that would just be at certain times we explore certain themes. Great cities of the world, great men of the world and one of the things that great things to see. And in the ancient world in the Hellenistic period, that's period from Alexander the Great's either 333 or 323. It's variously named either from his conquest, his beginning, his invasion of Persia or his death and the foundation of his successor's empire to the battle of Actium in 31 BC they were compilers so Philo Byzantium, for example. I think it's excerpted in the historian Diodorus. They talked about what are the best places in the World. As the world opened up and Greeks, who were the most inquisitive and the most expressive and had the richest letters, started to make lists, Hellenistic list. And one of them was, what are the most. What are the seven most impressive things in the world now that we have access to the world? And they came up with seven. They often did that in Greek. They used iconic numbers, seven sages, seven wonders of the world, etc. Two of them then they decided were in Greece. One was the Colossus, and we'll get to that in a second at Rhodes. And the other was the monumental statue of Zeus at Olympia. And that temple foundation is still there. Two were then Asian, Maya, and now what we call Turkey, the nation of Turkey. That was the monumental tomb of Mausolus, that when we get the word mausoleum at Bodrum, Ancient Heliconarsis and the temple of Artemis, the huge temple of Artemis at Ephesus. You can go to Ephesus today and see the foundation. And two were in Egypt, the monumental, I'm keeping using that word, monumental. The monumental pyramids at Giza under the pharaohs and the historic Ptolemaic lighthouse in the harbor of Alexander. And then there was one in Iraq at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Babylon is outside, I don't know, 30 miles. Then to Baghdad twice, and it's outside of Baghdad. And I went with a group and saw it during the war when I was invited. Okay, So I thought we could talk about that. When I was a little kid, a professor at Berkeley who was a professor of my mother's, lived alone and he was aged and he asked my mom to help him with legal matters and things. And when he passed away, he gave all his books. So as a kid I had these Bullfinch's mythology and all of these books about Greece. That's what really sparked my interest. And I wanted to read about the seven Wonders of the World. And some days I thought, I'm going to go to all of them. I was kind of like that character in Game of Thrones who crosses off all dead people she wants. For me, it was always these sites. And at 20, I first went to Greece and I decided I could knock off two or three of them. I saw the temple of Olympian Zeus. I went to. Actually, I did a lot. I saw the Giza pyramids. I went to the site of the lighthouse. Three, I went to Ephesus. Four, I went to Rhodes. Five. And I didn't think I would ever really, to tell you the truth, get to the mausoleum. I did that when I was 35 in Bodrame. And then I finally, at the age of 50, 53, I went to Baghdad, Daesh, Babylon. But the Colossus of Rhodes was there was. It was the island of Rhodes. You can go there today. And there's a capital, There's a number of classical cities, Lindos. But the capital city of Rhodes has a beautiful natural harbor. In antiquity, it was one of the wealthiest, most monumental, impressive cities of the ancient world. It's unfortunately on an earthquake fall and Demetrius the besieger in 304 BC tried to destroy the city and take it. It had revolted against his successor kingdom and he failed. And it was kind of an iconic event in ancient history that he spent all of this money, made all of these huge siege machines and he failed. And the Rhodians then sold off. He abandoned all of his equipment. He fled in disgrace and they melted down his armor. All of his abandoned, kind of like us in Afghanistan. It would be as if the Afghans sold off their $50 billion in American equipment and then restored the statues at Bayam, which they blew up, by the way. So they came into all this money and they decided to build a monumental think offering to. To the God Helios that was their patron city God. And they cast a huge bronze statue a hundred feet, 104ft high. That's one third the size of the Statue of Liberty. That's exactly the size of essentially the size of Jesus the Savior that you see above Rio de Janeiro, you know, with his hands out.
- [35:05]
Sammy Wink
Yes.
- [35:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
Wow. I think that's one of the modern seven wonders of the world. It was that big. And they cast it and around 280 they finished. And for 54 years it stood over, I think it was at the harbor. That's still disputed, this huge statue of the God, Sun God. And it's disputed. Did he have a torch in one hand? What was he doing? His face is on coins. So we know what it looked like, the facial part, and we have descriptions of how he cast it. So he built steel supports, we would call them girders, I shouldn't say steel, probably iron. And then they implanted it in a monumental marble platform. And then they put bronze cast plates around the girders and shape them, cast them, and then they filled it with rocks and soil. So it was solid and it was just stunning. When you came into the harbor, you saw this. There was a lot of 19th century, going back to the Renaissance. People argued over where it was. And there arose a myth that it, it had one Leg on one side of the entrance to the harbor and the other leg on the other. And I think now modern scholars say that's romance, that it was probably somewhere overlooking the harbor. It's kind of funny because it's really lived in the imagination of Westerners. The idea. I know when I was a kid, I thought Colossus of Rhodes and when you remember Game of Thrones.
- [36:46]
Sammy Wink
Yes. And also the Fellowship of the Rings, didn't they?
- [36:50]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes. So in the Game of Thrones it was this free city of bravos. Remember they had. And they had it like as if it was striding the ship set sailed under his legs. I even think it made a horn. I can't remember the episodes, but it made a sound as you came in that was based on the Colossus of those. And then in the. Never want to sight by memory or without notes anything about the Lord of the Rings because there are people who memorize it. But when the last scene, when they're going down the Anduin river they go through that narrow pass and that's Anggaroth, I think it's called in the book. And there's two huge statues and each one of them holds a sword and I think one holds a cord for arrows. In the movie, as I remember there, Isildur. And they're Isildur and the first king of Gondor. I'll remember his name. It's not Elessar, that's the term they use for Aragorn. But anyway, they guard. And they have their hands out like, you know, like they're stopping somebody. Yeah, one of the hands. And each of them has a hand and it says, you are now entering the realm of Gondor. And in the movie they change the music and it gets very somber and majestic. Elendil. Elendil and Isildur in the movie. But I don't think the book, as I remember I was a kid, I read it twice. Twice it's. It's Isildur and there's another person and I forgot the. The name of him. But in the movie they have the two first, the king and the sun.
- [38:30]
Sammy Wink
Yeah.
- [38:31]
Victor Davis Hanson
So. And it is a same type of statue. This statue, as I said, lasted 54 years and then they had an earthquake. So it crumbled and it fell over. And it became as wondrous when it was on the ground because people could. Tourists could walk up to it and look inside how it was built. And we have a first, I think a couple of firsthand, maybe plenty the. I think it was plenty the elder or Plenty the younger, excuse me, described what it was like and you could see the interior rocks that gave it bulk so that it wouldn't just fall over in the wind or something that was solid. And people from it fell, As I said, 54 years after 280 B.C. and then it just stayed there. And sometime in the seventh century, under the Islamic conquest, when the corsairs and people swept into the Aegean, they conquered roads and then they reportedly, according to contemporary accounts, I think it was 900 camels that took to cart away all the bronze, which they melted down for weaponry, but I think mostly coinage. And so today they found some 19th century, they found some bits that they missed that were actually in the harbor, but everything was taken away. And so ever since that, and in the continuance of curiosity during modern classical scholarship and archeology, people have speculated. So if you look at scholarly articles, there's so many renditions of what, what the statue was like, what type. Was he holding a. Was Helios holding a torch? Where was he? Some people even said, well, we found a place on the Acropolis. He wasn't even near the port. But as I remember, in the 19th century, they found a round podium right on a bluff overlooking the harbor. If you came in, that was where it was postulated. The Colossus stood. So it was. It's fascinating. I've been to Rhodes, and when I was there, of course, I went there twice, once with the American school people and when I was a student. And we all posed where we thought the 19th century's location had been identified. And you kind of posed that you were the Colossus. But it's wonderful to go there. Rhodes is a beautiful place, but of all the wonders of the world, that was the one that sort of captures a young kid's imagination the most, because the idea that somebody would build that. And this is kind of funny, I remember there was a was in antiquity, or there was maybe it was in a Greek newspaper. I try to read the Greek newspapers a lot. But sometime about 10 years ago, some German scholars said that they were going to build a new colossus there. And they even talked about putting one leg over an entrance to the harbor. And they were not going to make it. I think three, 100ft. They were going to make it three or 400ft. Huge. And then the EU meltdown came and beast was broke and they stopped it. But I think things like that capture people's imaginations. If you go and look at list of the largest statues in the world, they're almost all non Western. They're mostly all from China and India. And they tend to be Buddhas or indic gods. And they're massive, 4 or 500ft. Statue of Liberty is 300, but I think that's like 20th or something on the list of world statues in size and birth. So I think, you know, that's what I really liked about Hillsdale's cathedral. It was kind of a 19th century idea they built at Hillsdale College. I think it was the largest religious building church for five years in a five year period that was built within the United States. It's massive and beautiful and you know, we kind of Marxists. When I was in college, all of my Marxist professors would say about the, the pyramids or things like the part, well, you know, these, these were just the elite insects that were poaching off the pro taillight and they made these vanity projects and they took capital and labor away from the economy. But maybe not. Maybe they served as inspirational iconic figures that inspired people. And of course they grew tourists, which kind of like the Colossus was kind of like when I grew up, the Seattle Space Needle or the great Arch West. You know, go west, young man in St. Louis. The big stone arch, gateway to the West. Elon, are you listening? Why don't you, Elon, just take, I don't know, $200 million and try to make a colossus or foes. I don't know if we want Trump as a colossus. He doesn't have to be a living person, but somebody that exemplifies the American spirit. And maybe at a harbor, maybe in San Francisco, as part of your dreams of restoring that now city in decline. Can you imagine that if you came in by the Golden Gate, right next to the Golden Gate, you'd have a colossus with his hands out. Or if you want to stop foreign attack, you could have a gondor like king with his fist, palm pointing out at you. Stop. Like a Stop policeman, stop. Beware, you're entering the majestic city of San Francisco. Behave yourself.
- [43:58]
Sammy Wink
Yeah, I'm just trying to think who that would be. Like a George Patton or, I don't.
- [44:04]
Victor Davis Hanson
Know, somebody that we all acknowledge. Maybe Elon can make a. I said on one of our podcasts, I got a lot of letters about it, that I said he was a Renaissance figure. I mean, after all, for all the criticism he's getting, they all said it was a stupid idea that he bought Twitter. Twitter saved us. It really did. If Twitter had been in the hands of the left during this last election, they would have kept censoring the news and warping the news and allowed people to be freely expressed. It was a wonderful investment. I think it'll eventually pay off for Elon. So as I said before, he is kind of a colossus. That line, do you remember in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar when they're talking about Caesar when he comes back and they said that's where we get a colossus in modern. He is like a colossus and he stands astride us and we poor mortals are nothing in comparison. On pathetic graves I used to know pretty well. It comes from Julius Caesar, Shakespeare's play, and it compares Julius Caesar to the Colossus of Rhodes.
- [45:19]
Sammy Wink
I might be very frightened if it were the left that were trying to decide who should be represented.
- [45:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
Karl Marx, Eugene Debs, Bernie Sanders.
- [45:30]
Sammy Wink
Scary.
- [45:31]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. But you should have Elon Musk. In one hand he would hold a Tesla and the other hand he would hold a SpaceX X rocket. How's that?
- [45:42]
Sammy Wink
Yeah.
- [45:42]
Victor Davis Hanson
Striding across the globe or something. Or holding a globe in one hand.
- [45:47]
Sammy Wink
So that's a good idea.
- [45:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
Somebody's going to write me. Victor, do not feed these Elon's megalomania. He is already well under the way of being too powerful, too proud. I don't think so. I think we all owe him a great debt. He saved NASA, he saved the car industry. In a sense, he saved the social media industry. And I hope he can save us from ourselves and our debt.
- [46:12]
Sammy Wink
We'll see. I hope so too. Well, Victor, let's go ahead and take a break and come back and talk a little bit about the left that is fumbling around trying to figure out whatever happened. Stay with us and we'll be back.
- [46:29]
Victor Davis Hanson
Behind the bright lights and adrenaline of.
- [46:31]
Jack Fowler
Pro sports is an equally exciting world.
- [46:33]
Victor Davis Hanson
Of negotiations and deal making.
- [46:36]
Jack Fowler
That's what we cover each week on our podcast, the Deal.
- [46:39]
Victor Davis Hanson
I'm Alex Rodriguez, former baseball player turned business executive. And I'm Jason Kelly, chief correspondent for Bloomberg Originals.
- [46:46]
Jack Fowler
Over the next couple months, we'll hear from all stars like Jay Williams.
- [46:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
I want to be an owner one day.
- [46:50]
Jack Fowler
Billie Jean King, Learn the business and so many more.
- [46:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
Listen to the Deal wherever you get your podcast.
- [46:58]
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- [47:38]
Sammy Wink
We'Re back. This is the Victor Davis Hanson show. So, Victor, I know we've had a lot of discussion of the left wing trying to make sense of the election and now we have some new things that have been added to this picture here. And that is that recently Bret Stephens, who was a Never Trumper from long time ago, eight, nine years ago, as he admits, has written a column that he is done with Never Trump. And it's a funny little column that claims that they weren't wrong about January 6th, but they didn't realize that the people didn't care that Donald Trump was tougher on diplomacy than they actually understood or represented him as, and that his rhetoric appealed to the average person, especially Hispanic and black males and the youth generation. And he finishes this article with this, if the audience will bear with me, it's a very strange article where he kind of doesn't admit his own wrongs. But he says let's enter the new year by wishing the new administration well, by giving some of Trump's cabinet picks the benefit of the doubt, by dropping the lurid historical comparisons to past dictators, by not sounding paranoid about the ever looming end of democracy, by hoping for the best and knowing that we need to fight the wrongs that are real and not merely what we fear, that whatever happens, this too shall pass. What an ending.
- [49:23]
Victor Davis Hanson
So he tells us he voted in that op ed for Camilla Harris. British I know you're having a come to Jesus moment after Donald Trump won the popular electoral vote, after he walked into Notre Dame and he caused a stampede of former euro skeptics and Trump haters who wanted to worship him before he was even president. I know he's in some polls polling 54%. So I understand now why you've had this about face, but I wish you'd had it before the election. If you'd just written this before the election, can you imagine if you'd taken the courage to suggest that everything you saw was evident to you before the election? It was. You made a great cause. You said that you had predicted that his tariffs would ruin the economy and they didn't. You said his swagger abroad and his BE rating of NATO's failure to comply and all that would ruin American foreign policy and cause wars. His was the only administration in four that we didn't have a major war. You said that all of his chaotic behavior would disunite the country. And compared to Joe Biden or the furor that he invoked, he was not a divider. So you were wrong. But you were wrong in a way that you knew before the election. So why are you doing this now? There can only be two reasons, Brett. Either, you didn't have the courage of your convictions and you thought that the American, you didn't really think the American people would vote for him and therefore you did not want to be in the minority again. Or two, you thought that if you wrote this column before the election, it would help Donald Trump get elected and they would blame you. And now after it's over, there's no culpability, no exposure possible. So now you tell us what in the ninth year of the Trump phenomenon, after nine years of saying that he was satanic almost. I mean, in fairness to you, you didn't go the full derangement syndrome. I don't think you did. I didn't read all of your columns, but to the same degree of Bill Kristol or David Frommer, George Will or Jonah Goldberg. But you're telling us now he came on that escalator, as I remember, in 2015, that's nine and a half years ago. All of your sentiment, although it's tinged with little jabs, you know that he's a liar, he's a braggad, he's this, this. And I would say you to compare to what Bernie Sanders. So what I'm getting at, I wish you had have done it earlier. You would have had more credibility. It would have more people would have paid attention to it. Now I think it's just, it's admirable that you're no longer a deranged, obsessed fanatic, never Trumper, dead ender, whose ranks are now evaporating into nothingness. But I wish you hadn't done it earlier. Yeah, so do I.
- [52:22]
Sammy Wink
Well, the second one in this group of people who are re examining the left is Ram Emanuel. And he had an interesting article discussing what went wrong with the left. And what was interesting was this, that he covered two decades. So he said, well, the people grew disenchanted with the establishment under George W. Bush with the Iraq war and the financial crisis in 2008, and then the Democrats became the establishment in 2020 when the COVID epidemic took over. And that's where they gained the ire of the people. And so the Democrats then went on the road to transgendered. Everybody's got to have the right bathroom.
- [53:18]
Victor Davis Hanson
And you were saying that who was the champion of this correct view?
- [53:22]
Sammy Wink
Who was the champion of the. No, what he's saying is that which.
- [53:29]
Victor Davis Hanson
One you mentioned to one or two people.
- [53:32]
Sammy Wink
I'm just talking Ram Emanuel.
- [53:34]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I know, but the only reason I asked that there was a brilliant column today by a person, I don't know him. So I'm not trying to just praise somebody I know, but his name is David Samuels and he wrote that in Tablet. It had a title about the Obamas. It was exactly that.
- [53:53]
Sammy Wink
That they were wrong because they became the establishment and everybody hated the establishment and that's what did them in.
- [53:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, and he puts the blame. He's talking about the technocracy and the perversion of the media and the creation of sound chambers, echo chambers. But they were hypocritical and they were wealthy, elite, powerful people. Unfortunately, this. The Obamas were emblematic of that and.
- [54:20]
Sammy Wink
They ignored the problems of the people in the economy, the border and the.
- [54:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
I read Rahm Emanuel. So I was thinking that while you were quoting Rahm Emanuel and maybe you'd read that Samuels article because it was similar, but Rahm Emanuel, as I recall reading the piece that you're referring to, it wasn't necessarily. I mean, it was kind of disingenuous. It wasn't necessarily a criticism of the Democrats. It was just we are so morally superior to everybody and we're so intellectually superior that we just didn't get that across because we talked to each other. So it was a problem of messaging. We've got to reach out to ordinary people and not live in a bubble. It was not the message messenger. We could have had any messenger. We could have had Kamala Harris sit there all day long on Joe Rogan and she still make a fool of herself and lose the election. We could have had Joe Biden's sharpest attack fit as a fiddle and he still would have lost the election given what he was promoting. He was the person Rahm Emanuel met. Remember what he said? Never let a serious crisis go to waste. He was referring to the aftermath of the 2008 meltdown. And what she was basically saying is he elaborated on that quote, that this is a time to get socialist practices in because people are terrified of capitalism. And more importantly, that's the climate in which they pushed down this God awful Obamacare which has made healthcare go way beyond the rate of inflation each year. As far as its cost. But it's just one of these. It's just. It's not like I shouldn't mislead people. They came to similar criticisms of elements of the democratic delusions. But Rahm Emanuel is not confronting the truth that it's innate with them. And what the Democratic Party became is the logical trajectory in which it was headed. Samuel says it's worse than that. It was a cultural revolution in which they suppressed free speech and they created artificial norms, forms and vocabulary and reference and technology that you have for the first time. Google changing the order of searches and Facebook and Twitter suppressing free expression and working with the FBI and creating this new gender chauvinism, fanaticism and words like Latinx safe spaces. It was a cultural level. I've talked about that too.
- [56:58]
Sammy Wink
Yeah.
- [56:58]
Victor Davis Hanson
And it was very dangerous. And he believes that it was emblematic of the Obamas. They were the ones that first tried to wreck the progress of the civil rights movement, which was on its way to Martin Luther King's dream that race would be incidental. Not a century who we are, the content of our character. He was the one that destroyed that Obama. He came up with these terms diversity and, you know, diversity, diversity, DEI woe. That all started with Obama. And so Samuels faults him for what he did. He staged a cultural revolution among elite people who knew in their hearts that we were reaching a point of psychological, spiritual, and even material parody where race was increasingly not important. But he also knew that this rising elite, black and diverse minority class could not give that up because they wanted an edge. And their way of thinking, I should be anchorman. I should be the special, special assistant to the president. I should be. I don't want to be the president of Cal State Fresno. I want to be this president of Harvard. And the only way I can do that is to publish, work hard. But why would human nature want me to do that when I can just yell, racism, racism, racism. Underrepresentation, Underrepresentation. Merit is a construct that all came in. It didn't come in, but it was empowered by Obama. And Samuels, Remember, had written an earlier essay, Dave Garrow, I guess, the author of the biography of Obama. It was devastating in its comprehensiveness. The Obama fraud. He was, remember, a constitutional lawyer. And contract was hired to teach. Contracts never really did. He was given a year to do nothing, to write a book. He didn't write a book. Instead, he outsourced his memoir to Bill Ayers. I mean, everything about it. And it wasn't even a memoir. It was a fantasy novel, basically.
- [59:07]
Sammy Wink
Yeah. At least that's what he said about.
- [59:09]
Victor Davis Hanson
The girl he dated and other things as well. So he was a total fraud. And one of the things that was the end of the Samuel's article. And by the way, it's relevant because Rahm Emanuel was the architect of Obama. Remember he was chief of staff and he was sort of the tough guy that would say things other people wouldn't and get in fights and take on the right and a brawler. Then he became mayor of Chicago. And then all of a sudden he realized that the black left wing class were never going to accept him as someone who wanted to make changes like reign in the teachers union, balance the budget. He couldn't do that. So therefore he was. And they were anti Semitic, the left wing black elite, as we know, the home of the dear Reverend Wright, Jesse Jackson. But I think his son also was mugged right near the mayoral mansion in Chicago.
- [60:13]
Sammy Wink
Oh, wow.
- [60:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
So he got a dose of reality. His brother is a super agent, multi, multi millionaire, but very successful agent in Hollywood. The whole family was very talented, but they were. He was Rahma Manuel was kind of a. The silencer, the hitman, the tough guy and the Clinton. And then they outsourced him to Obama. But Obama never felt comfortable with him. Obama never felt comfortable with Jewish liberals. He never did. He had a deep seated resentment. He often expressed that with his hatred of Israel. His famous thing, we have to have daylight between us and Israel. And he did so much damage in the Middle East.
- [60:54]
Sammy Wink
Maybe he got that from Reverend Wright, who didn't. Who doesn't really like Israel either.
- [60:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
You mean that Reverend Wright, his personal pastor who married them and he said that. Remember when Reverend Wright said no, no, no, God bless America. God, remember that?
- [61:11]
Sammy Wink
Yes.
- [61:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
Chickens coming home to roost. And then they asked Obama, I think, was it Chicago? Sometimes I'm doing this by memory. It was 20 years ago, not quite. But they said, senator Obama, did you go to Reverend Wright? This was right before he said all this. And he wanted to cash in on the fact that he wasn't an atheist intellectual, but he wanted to appeal to the black middle class. And remember David Axelrod, as Samuels points out, was hired. He didn't want to work for Obama. He was hired under duress because he had a reputation for getting black candidates elected to place high positions in municipalities, Mayor Fanny Willis type district attorneys. And he did that not by getting out the black book, but by going to the upper white and upper, upper, upper classes, the people with the money and he would either guilt trip them. I know you're racist, but you have a chance to show everybody that you're not racist by voting for Barack Obama. Or show lead America, be our spiritual leaders. Go ahead of the gang, get ahead of the crowd. You can do it. You can vote for a brilliant never. This candidate has these requisites and he has a record of physical sobriety. None of that, none of the issues. It was all illusionary. And he was the one that then recreated Barack Obama. Samuels points that out that he was brilliant in the way he did it, although he was utterly cynical and he gave us Barack Obama, sad to say, Barack Obama. There's a great line in this article today by Samuels where I've read so many this morning. I got up at 4 and read about 5 articles. But I think it's in Samuels where he basically says Obama had been defeated as a House candidate and badly so. And he really wanted to get into politics, but he was inauthentic. So he was going. He was reaching out to two people to help him rebrand as a black candidate. David Axelrod, who had this genius for doing whatever it took to get white people to vote for blacks. Remember he was the one that leaked the Ryan divorce records that was the opponent to Barack Obama that were sealed. And then somehow he called his friends up at the court and got them or got him unsealed and to Obama's benefit. And the other person that Obama was desperately to wanted to meet was Jesse Jackson Jr. Remember, they were on TV today with senior and they had a hot mic moment. Didn't Jesse Jackson Sr. Say, I would like to cut his. And then it was a pejorative word or expletive for testicle off. He said that while it was pontificating.
- [64:14]
Sammy Wink
You better be careful. Keep your what friends close and your enemy friends closer.
- [64:20]
Victor Davis Hanson
We've survived. I don't know. I don't know. I was when Bret Stephens. I had two nightmarish experiences. I watched my laptop today, Kamala Harris's speech yesterday, I guess it was yesterday, where she looked almost intoxicated and she was cackling and giggling the whole time and she was kind of trying to make fun of herself. It was really sad, but she was almost woozy. And then I read that Brett Stevens mea culpa, mea culpa, mea mexima culpa. Op ed. And he says he voted for it. And I thought you voted for a candidate like that who's on Sears. Do you realize what she would have done to the country had she been elected.
- [65:04]
Sammy Wink
He's still got Trump derangement syndrome. I mean, that is crazy, too.
- [65:09]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, it is. The thing that was weird before she even came in the race, and I assume he would have voted for Biden. You had what was unique about the 2024 race. Unlike 2016 and 2020, you had initially two candidates, and they had one thing in common. Donald Trump had four years of governance. Right. And in 2024, Joe Biden had four years of governance. So when Donald Trump was running against Joe Biden until July of this year, the voters had a very unique opportunity. They rarely have ever. If ever they've had, they could say, do you want 2017 to 2021? Or do you want 2021 to 2020? January 25th, you've got four years in each case. You've got Biden and he's almost done with his tenure, and you have Trump, who's done. Now it's 2024. Whom do you want? And that was one of the reasons, among many, why Biden was way behind. And I say way behind, I don't mean way behind necessarily. 10 points. That doesn't happen in a divided America anymore. When you get 50% of the vote, that is a referendum. And you carry the Electoral College with 312 votes, and you have then the House, the Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme Court, and you have a 60% majority on most of the polls in favor of most of your issues. Border crime, energy, foreign policy, economy. That's what Trump did.
- [66:49]
Sammy Wink
Yes. Victor, let's do one last thing. There has been news that came out about the Fanny Willis case on election interference against Donald Trump. Apparently, I think it's the appeals court in Georgia has said that she needs to be removed from the case and has no authority to proceed. And there's appearance of impropriety. Those are the two big charges here. Does this have any impact on the other cases against Donald Trump, or what are your thoughts on it in general?
- [67:23]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, there's. There's only three left now. There's the sentencing of Alvin Bragg's case, and excuse me, there's really only two left. E. Jean Carroll's civil suit is over with. That's on appeal. That $80 million defamation, sexual assault claim. That suit, by the way, was funded by Reid Hoffman, the billionaire Silicon Valley Trump hater, who now said the other day, there's a 50% chance that I could be an object of retribution by Don. Well, I don't know. Unless you're legally culpable, Reid, but you Tried to destroy the man by cooking up this crazy suit and then you funded it with these high priced lawyers to bankrupt him. And I wouldn't take that kindly. I'm not saying he's going to warp the weapons, the legal system, but if there was something wrong, obviously you'd have to be accountable like anybody else. Not saying there is. In any case, all we really, Letita James is up on appeal. That was that huge. That was the phoniest of all, I.
- [68:31]
Sammy Wink
Think over valuing his house, Deutsche bank.
- [68:35]
Victor Davis Hanson
Comes in and says, I don't think he overvalued Mar A Lago. I think if you look at the price today, given what we knew it was undervalued. And by the way, we issued the multimillion dollar loan, he paid it back on time, we had a hefty interest profit and we would sure do it again. And she said, you don't know how you were wrong. And for the first time in the history of New York State, I'm going to say if the bank doesn't know that they're wrong, they're wrong still. Because I'm a genius, Letita James, and I'm an expert in New York real estate. And they got a jury. So the only one really left, Jack Smith folded his tent after the Supreme Court ruling and the change in the election. So the only one that was really viable is we have Alvin Bragg, where Judge Merchandise holding the sword of Damocles over Trump. Oh, we're going to get you after four years and sentence you. And then we have Fanny Willis. Now she's taken off the case, but the judges and the appellate court did not remove the indictment. But do you really think that the attorney, that the Fulton county prosecutor is going to say, ah, Fannie Willis blew through millions of dollars and wasted legal fees. She gave the Paramore phony, Nathan Wade, $700,000 in fees. He was an utter incompetent. And then the two of them caravanned around the world on our dime. And then they both went in and lied about their relationship under oath and the money and claimed that only blacks use cash and therefore they have no receipts that might condemn them. It was really a racist argument. Even got her ex black Black Panther father in there to do it. So I don't think anybody wants to get near there. I just think that the district attorney's office or whoever in the decision process will say this is a lose lose situation. Especially when Georgia went pretty clearly for Trump.
- [70:38]
Sammy Wink
Yeah.
- [70:39]
Victor Davis Hanson
And especially when 25 or 30% of black males in Georgia voted For Trump.
- [70:44]
Sammy Wink
Yeah.
- [70:45]
Victor Davis Hanson
So I think that's over. I'll just make one last thing. I was thinking, if you look at the judges, we've had five of them now, right? So you look at the judge and the E. Jean Carroll case, that was Judge Cohen, as I remember, and you look at his rulings. They should have thrown that case out every time. There was an objection that she. They wanted to introduce evidence that she didn't know the year that she'd said that she could cite the assault by the driver that she wore that was not even a signer dress, that wasn't even created yet. The eerie parallels between a Law and Order episode. We went through all of that. He ruled against Trump almost every time. And then he said himself, indiscriminately and offhandedly, he used the word rape. And somebody, as I remember, corrected him. And he said, well, yes, they didn't technically convict him of rape. No, it wasn't technically. They were asked on Judicial question on, number one, did he rape? The jury was asked, did he rape? They said unequivocally, no, he didn't. He sexually assaulted. I don't know what that might entail. But the judge did what, to a lesser degree, what George Stephanopoulos was, you know, 10 times allegedly saying the word rape. Rape, rape, rape, rape. He didn't. I shouldn't say allegedly. He did. And that's why ABC settled for $16 million. But the judge gave that opening. So he was a bad judge. And the second judge was Aragon Engeroron. Remember, he was the lead at James. He was a guy who was always posing for the cameras. He oversaw the penalty fray. Remember, his initial penalty on that bogus case was $450 million. They reduced it, I think, to 373, but that's still standing. It's still unemployment. He was the most biased of the judges. And then we go to Fanny Willis's McCaffrey. Remember every. He bent over backwards when it was clear that they were purging themselves, they had conflict of interest. He did not dismiss the case. In fact, he said she could go on and represent the state of Georgia, Fulton county, and by association, Georgia, and going after Trump. And it took an appellate court to throw that McCaffrey's judgment out. And then we had. I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I suggested that Judge Engoron was the worst. He wasn't. It was Judge Merchand, the Alvin Bride judge. He was the one that kept this. He had conflicts of interest. He'd given a little bit of money to the Biden campaign Democrats and and his daughter had become quite affluent by using her father's name to create a Democratic centered, orientated consulting business. He should have excused himself. I think there's going to be a repeal of Letitia James settlement, a repeal maybe of a re examination of the amount that Cohen gave or the jury and Cohen gave in the G.E. carroll case. I think the Fanny Willis things will die and we're just going to be ending up with Alvin Bragg's sentencing. I think that will be unappealable. And then we're going to start to see something else. I don't think Trump is going to go after everybody, but if there's clear exposure and I don't think you really have to hunt very hard, all you have to say is we're not going to have a vendetta. But if you broke the law, and you know you broke the law, then you should know that we know you know you broke the law and you might want to worry about that. Not that we're going to do what you did, but we're going to follow the law. We're not going to be too punitive, weaponized, but we're not going to be too lax either. And I think that scared and terrified people. So especially Liz Cheney. She came out today. Did you see what she said? That this was horrible and the idea that she'd done anything wrong and she was. This is politicized, Liz. It doesn't really matter what you say. It doesn't matter what I say. They will find a federal prosecutor and they will bring it to his attention and they will say did or did she not try to tamper and coach a witness without the attorney's knowledge? And they will decide whether if that happens and it does, is it worth prosecuting a person? They have policies, they have precedents. And if they have policies that it's not, it's minor, they won't prosecute her. If they find out that congresswomen and men all the time are lax with evidence under subpoena, if records are destroyed and it was inadvertent or you can have it, then they're not, she's fine. But if it's not, she's in trouble. I don't think it'll be special treatment. No, what she's asking for is a special treatment. We're all subject to constant legal observance. And so I think a lot of these people will be very eager and have their names into whoever's running the Obama administration, the Biden administration, Right now saying, you know how Trump is soliciting names for cabinet appointments?
- [76:05]
Sammy Wink
Yeah.
- [76:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, they have a parallel apparatus going on now in the waning days of the Biden administration. And this who gets a pardon. 1500 of them. That's more people than Trump has already nominated. They just let a communist Chinese national who was what, caught downloading child porn. They gave a pardon to him.
- [76:27]
Sammy Wink
Yeah, he gave a pardon. Biden also gave a pardon to a judge who had sent kids to a detention center for bribes back or kids kickbacks from that detention center for sending kids.
- [76:39]
Victor Davis Hanson
One. One child killed himself. Oh yeah, that was good old Joe Biden from Scranton. Even Joshua Pirro, who was not nearly as moderate as everybody said he was, was outraged at that.
- [76:51]
Sammy Wink
Yeah.
- [76:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
So I don't know. Joe Biden's legacy is going to be non existent. I don't think it was not. It was existent given his record of actual accomplishment. There was none.
- [77:03]
Sammy Wink
But it's not going to go down well.
- [77:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
No, it's going to right there with.
- [77:08]
Sammy Wink
Buchanan, I think from the 1840s.
- [77:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
Buchanan was 1856. He was the last president before the Civil War, before Lincoln came in.
- [77:20]
Sammy Wink
He's usually seen as the worst president so far, but maybe.
- [77:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I think so. I think people have looked back at McKinley and Garfield and Grant and reappraise them and thought they weren't that bad. They were presidents actually in some ways, but not Buchanan.
- [77:39]
Sammy Wink
Well, Victor, we're at the end of the show and I wanted to read a couple of comments from Apple podcasts about your show. The first one is for Jack Fowler. Mr. Jack Fowler, please don't be so hard on yourself. You are not so shabby. I enjoy the back and forth with you and Professor Hanson. Always looking forward to the VDH wisdom every week. And that was a very nice one. And then another one. Educate yourself. I like this Victor Davis Hansen provides exceptional commentary on current events. He provides meaningful insights on World War II and other historical developments. He understands the working people in the United States. Highly recommend it and thank you both for both of those.
- [78:26]
Victor Davis Hanson
We appreciate Jack's Queen's accent and his down to earth. I met Jack 22 years ago when I started writing for National Review. Anytime I had a question about a column or the direction of National Review and I just wanted insight and guidance in a dispassionate, analytical way. I heard that Queen's accent be a source of information and reliability.
- [78:55]
Sammy Wink
Yeah, he is. And he's also a natural at the talk show. I think he does a great job.
- [79:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
He knows the entire conservative movement backwards and forwards. He's met everybody. Yeah, that's true too. He oversaw the mechanics, the nut and bolt operations, financial, political, civic, National View magazine. So we're obviously devoted. He was very devoted to William Buckley while alive and his legacy after he died.
- [79:28]
Sammy Wink
Well, we're fans of Jack, that's for sure. So thanks to our audience as well for their joining us today. We're so happy to have you.
- [79:37]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you everybody for listening and we'll see you next time with another, I don't know which.
- [79:41]
Sammy Wink
We'll be on with Jack on Tuesday.
- [79:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
Oh, we don't do the next seventh wonder of the World. Maybe we'll try to do some of the obscure ones first. Everybody knows up here I will do the temple of Olympian Zeus and the statue of Olympian Zeus which was the model for that famous George Washington in the Capitol, standing with a sitting like he's a Greek God.
- [80:03]
Sammy Wink
Any plans for Christmas? I forgot to ask you because this is our last loan before you go to Christmas holiday.
- [80:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I have. My children are very busy. My daughter lives 200 miles away now and she's back to the land. So I think I'm going to drive up there the day after Christmas and I'll probably see my in laws and I will see my son, I hope a little bit very close to my two children. I have kind of a sad feeling because from 1980 to 2000, for 20 years there were four families. My two brothers and my first cousin whose mother died. We kind of helped raise and they lived on the ranch. And then my other cousin, this sister lived in Fresno. So we had these parties often at my old dilapidated farmhouse and had not restored it yet. So it was 12 children in the living room and all these adults and my parents and uncles and it was wonderful and it was like a big family and now it's just totally quiet. So it's kind of ironic that when you have no money at all in your flat globe and you're making 22,000 thousand a year at Cal State, you've got three children and you're got a ranch that's in debt and losing money.
- [81:36]
Sammy Wink
That'S that recipe for happiness.
- [81:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
It is. And then when you're doing pretty well because I have a good salary now and I know more about finance and I fix the house up entirely. There's no one to enjoy. I mean there's no way to come.
- [81:53]
Sammy Wink
They're all gone. They offer.
- [81:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
I wish it was wired and plumbed and roofed and insulated and painted and new floors. Everything was new when they were all there. But maybe it was better because they didn't worry. You know, the kids would get together and they'd go welf house. And I'd hear it ding. Shattered a window. And I'd say, oh, that was nice, son. That was nice. My nephew. That was a 19th century kind of warp hand molded glass that's been here since 1870. Don't worry, I'll just go get a cheap and do it myself and fix it. And I didn't care. I didn't, you know, I was. Because the house was so old and was falling apart and it was full of people and I was way. And I felt the same way when we were young and we had an 800 square foot farmhouse and we had all these 19th century people. I'll just leave everybody with a thought. One of the great gifts of growing up rural and I was born in 1953, but that was the last generation where you could hear people talk who were 19th century. People that were born in the 19th century before really the age of electricity and electronic appurtenances and cars and planes and indoor plumbing. And they had a different accent. That's one of the reasons westerns don't work today. Because people that they hired in Hollywood, it's very hard to find kind of a Robert Duvall accent, you know what I mean, to make a good western. And that was what the accent was. Because I can remember my grandmother and my grandfather and of course my Swedish grandpa, they all had that strange accent and vocabulary. And there, don't go out yonder, you'll catch coke. I'm gonna shake the dickens out of you. And then it was this. Well, when everybody was here, you know, for Christmas at this house, sometimes it was, now who's going to use the bathroom? There was one little toilet and one little tiny bathtub for the entire house. And when they'd have to 12 or 15 people here, everybody would want to use it. So they'd say, anybody want to use the bathroom? You can go, you can go, you can go.
- [84:11]
Sammy Wink
Put your name on the list.
- [84:13]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. And then there was an outhouse. So all of us went out to the outhouse out there by the barn, which finally I destroyed. And I thought to myself, when I was a little boy at seven, if I ever have a chance, I'm going to bulldoze this thing over. And I did.
- [84:27]
Sammy Wink
You did.
- [84:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
I did all my. I fulfilled all my childhood dreams. I destroyed the outhouse and I went to the seven wonders of the world. I'm a very lucky person.
- [84:35]
Sammy Wink
You are a very lucky person. Well, Victor Davis.
- [84:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
And I'm very lucky to have such a wonderful, loyal audience. I get letters and calls. I really appreciate it.
- [84:43]
Sammy Wink
Yeah. This is Sammy Wink and Victor Davis Hansen, and we're signing off.