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- [00:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
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- [01:37]
Jack Fowler
Hello, ladies. Hello, gentlemen. Welcome to the Victor Davis Hansen Show. I'm Jack Fowler, the host. You are here to get some wisdom from the great man himself, vdh Victor Davis Hansen, who is the Martin and Neely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. Victor has a website, the Blade of Perseus. What's the VictorHansen.com is the address. Victor's alive. Still. We see him.
- [02:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
I am.
- [02:08]
Jack Fowler
Those on Rumble can see him.
- [02:10]
Victor Davis Hanson
He's actually, I don't look alive, but I think I'm alive. It's day nine of my flu and I'm getting a lot of recommendations. You should have taken Tamiflu, Victor. I'm sorry, I didn't. I did get a prescription. Somebody, a very good friend of mine who's a renowned doctor, said your cough is a bacterial remnant from the viral infection. Take a Z Pak, he said. He did. He was over his cough in one day. I've had it for nine days, so I respect that. Completely wiped out. Still angry at myself. Looking at the ceiling. Reexamining my entire life before me, making radical changes and then coming to the conclusion that I've had pretty good health the last six years. Except I've had three COVIDs and two flus. And they all had one thing in common. Long flights and long flights and then going into huge Receptions and book signings and meet and greet. So 71, if I ever get over this, I am going to have a new leaf. No more speaking out of state, no more traveling out of state. Comfortable existence in California. How's that?
- [03:25]
Jack Fowler
I guess I'm gonna have to go out there every once in a while.
- [03:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, you're gonna have to come out and see. I'm gonna make a self compound.
- [03:33]
Jack Fowler
I'll bring a flatbed truck and I can pick up some washing machines and dry.
- [03:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
It's very insidious how things did. My mother, who died tragically at 66 of a brain tumor when she was 65. She was working as an appellate court judge like a dog. And she was trying to help us on a money losing ranch. 180 acres. And she once said something she goes, at the rate that I'm going, I will have to work to 70. And I thought of that yesterday. I'm 71. So. My dad retired from his junior college job at 57. He went and worked on the farm. But he, he lived to be 76 and he was a heavy drinker and smoker.
- [04:18]
Jack Fowler
There's some hobbies you can pick up. Victor, I'm going to ask you about smoking.
- [04:25]
Victor Davis Hanson
No. My father gave me a lifelong lecture that he would always say to me very politely, do not smoke. Asterisk. Your twin brother smokes. Your older brother smokes, I smoke. When the flu comes, you and you alone get the flu. And then I've seen some, some isolated theories that the nicotine fumes are an antiviral in your lungs. But whether that's worth the damage it does, I don't know. But I've never smoked a cigarette. I've smoked two cigarettes in my life.
- [04:58]
Jack Fowler
You answered the question I was going to ask.
- [05:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
They were both cools. I was 18 and I was at Yale University taking what do you call it, intensive Greek for nine weeks. I got strep throat, by the way. And I was walking down the street and an African American young man wanted $1. I gave him $1. He gave me two cool cigarettes in exchange. I went back and I smoked one of them. It just reminded me of Vic's vaporub.
- [05:31]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, it was menthol. Yeah, delicious.
- [05:33]
Victor Davis Hanson
That's the last time I ever smoked.
- [05:35]
Jack Fowler
All right, I'm going to ask Victor about a pipe and we'll do that when I come back. When we come back from these initial important messages.
- [05:47]
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- [05:57]
Jack Fowler
It again and again.
- [05:58]
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- [06:58]
Victor Davis Hanson
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- [08:42]
Jack Fowler
We'Re back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. By the way, we're recording on Saturday the 15th. In this particular particular episode will be up on Tuesday, March 18, which is the day after St. Patrick's Day and the day before St. Joseph's Day. And later on Victor at the end of the show, I'll Do a little Catholic, Irish, Italian, Catholic riff. Did you ever smoke a pipe?
- [09:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
Nope, never. I had a professor, a very wonderful professor, John Lynch. He was. I met him when he was 26 and he smoked a pipe and a lot of the graduate, graduate and undergraduates emulated him. So he would have people over to his home and they would have red wine and they would all smoke these various Irish brands. He was Irish blends of. He died very tragically at 75 of Parkinson's disease. But he was a smoke. That was a big thing in the 70s on campuses. Pipe smoking pipes.
- [09:42]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, yeah.
- [09:43]
Victor Davis Hanson
Professors, you know, it was kind of like to. They had little patches on their sport coats and all sorts of pipe cleaners and wire rim glasses and beards and natty dress, no underdressed, I'd say. But he was a wonderful professor. I really liked him. But I never got. I never. It's something that my father, who was a wonderful person would kid me, you know about. You don't drink, you don't smoke. I never used drugs and the result was I was kind of sickly my entire. When I was a kid I was known as the sickly child. Pumped through antibiotics all the time and then I've had I think six or seven. But it's always. My mom always said you overdo it. You sleep about four or five hours and you're kind of crazy. So you self induced, I don't know.
- [10:35]
Jack Fowler
Proven with all these Covid bouts and other, other burdens you've had to bear you again, I say you're indestructible. Victor, by the way, you know who is not indestructible?
- [10:45]
Victor Davis Hanson
Who?
- [10:46]
Jack Fowler
Abdallah Maki Mosleh Al Rifai, also known as Abu Khadija, the head of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He was killed by a joint effort by Iraqi government and the United States. So that's a good, that's a good one. Yes.
- [11:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I mean that's what Trump said he was going to do the first term. I'm going to bomb the proverbial sh. Blank out of isis. He did. He got rid of Soleimani, he got rid of Baghdadi, he got rid of the Wagner group. He got very little credit for that. Yeah, I mean the question is why was he operating with impunity under four years of the Biden administration? And the answer to that is well, why was the Yemenis taking control of the Red Sea with impunity? Or why. Why did we allow a Chinese balloon to go all the way to South Carolina before We shot it down. Or why were there two theater wide wars under the Biden watch? I only mention that because I'm getting really tired of listening to all of this hysteria from the left. We've only been here eight weeks with the Trump counter revolution and it's like, oh my God, he deported somebody. Well, what do you think is the reason for that? Who let in 12 San Francisco? You people did 12 of them. 12 one million person cities. And out here on ground zero you could see the difference. Whether it was an increase in people throwing trash or are people gang activity, or as happened three days ago, two huge dogs just dumped out of a car wandering into our yard. The system isn't ready for that shock. And it wasn't 12 million dispersed over the continental United States. It was 12 million people flown into particular locales along the Texas Mexican border, in the San Joaquin Valley, in the inner city. It wasn't the people of Malibu and it wasn't the people in Newport, Rhode Island. It was the other people who bore the consequences of their policies. And the same thing is true of the Soros crime wave. The same thing was true of borrowing $7 trillion and getting a hyper 9% inflation in 2022. The same thing was true of what we're learning from usaid. So I guess what I'm saying, Jack, is what is the alternative? He's cut off a billion, $100 billion. He's put, that's nothing, nothing. We are borrowing $3 billion a day in interest. Three billion. That would mean that every single day, before Elon Musk can cut anything, he has to cut $3 billion billion dollars to make up for the interest, which is about over a trillion dollars. And then he's only done $100 billion and the country is falling apart. So what was the alternative? Same thing about the Ukraine thing. You can't do that. You shouldn't do this. That's naive. That won't work. Okay, what was the plan before Donald Trump? He didn't start the war. The war occurred because Joe Biden, like Barack Obama, lost deterrence and signaled that he wouldn't do anything. So then Putin went in, maybe a million, a million and a half, dead, wounded and missing. What is the alternative when all these people are screaming he's naive? I like the Wall Street Journal, Jack, but have you noticed that almost every article is negative now in the news section? I was looking at it today, it said people cutting back, delaying trips, cutting back. And then there's a little article below that says gas prices. I'm thinking Another one is people sneaking in eggs from Mexico. And I thought well why don't you just have a little article that say egg prices have dropped $2 a dozen. Donald Trump was elected rather than saying that there's an egg shortage or it was why not say it was caused under Biden and it's getting better. But they never do that. And then they said people worried about prices and cutting back and what they actually gas is the lowest it's been in four years. Or why don't you say the consumer price index was much less than what everybody expected and after what, eight weeks you can't really have a policy. But I don't know who is writing. But when I see names like Molly Ball writing for the Wall Street Journal, this is the woman in 2021 for Time magazine wrote that triumphalist essay about the cabal her words not mine. The conspiracy that modulated street protest partnered with the government to censor news and check changed the voting laws and ha ha ha, we won. And that is one of the marquee Wall Street Journal reporters. So I don't know what it is. I like a lot of the op ed writers but I wish when they start in on it and they all do now they would just tell us what the alternative is. And when they get on Ukraine, I just feel like saying the closest historical model to what we see in Ukraine on a larger scale was World War I. No one in the Allied camp had any idea how to stop the German juggernaut. They tried at Verdun, they tried at Somme, they tried at Passchendaele. And after 2 million dead Russia was knocked out and 500,000 German troops were transferred to the west at that point the only there was there a change in strategy? No. Was there a new technology? Tanks, Airplane didn't really one thing stopped it. Two million Americans were drafted and a million were sent in 1917 and early 19 and that stopped the German offensive. So my point is if you think you're going to break up this Stalingrad or this World War I Verdun, what is your new technology? What is your strategy? Because I don't see a world, I don't see any United States sending 2 million people over there. And unless you can come up with 10 divisions as I said earlier, NATO non American aircraft, 2000 maybe Sweden, Britain, France, they could all get together and send a thousand jets and run surface air control. I don't know what they can do. They can ground support but let's hear something rather than we're going to do what it takes, we're going to go stand with the end. Well, what is the strategy? It's very easy to say that Trump doesn't understand Putin, that Putin is sneaky, we all understand that. But who was making any effort to find a resolution to this other than just give what it takes? We're 36 trillion in debt. Just send another $200 billion every year or so. Or as I said last time, 500 million Europeans screaming about a war of 140 million Russians attacking a country that's got no more than 30 million left, while they're all faulting and blaming a 330 million Americans 7,000 miles away. Doesn't make any sense. But I just want to hear something positive. That's all. Just a constructive. You know what I mean? Why doesn't the Wall Street Journal have a long essay and say this is the strategy that will lead to Ukrainian victory, recovery of the borders from 2022 or maybe 2014, a strategic resolution. This is how. Why don't they do it, outline it? This is how much more money we have to borrow and this is how much it will cost each year. Just say that. But they don't. Same thing with Doge. Have you noticed, Jack, where are you going to get the cuts? Do you remember Barack Obama had something called the Simpson Bowles Commission for Debt Relief and Government Efficiency, basically. And they came back to Barack Obama and it was Al Simpson, who just passed away, was a good friend of mine. And that was a wonderful three tier tax, simple simplification, just three tax brackets, cutting government. And had we adopted all of those modest Social Security reforms, we would, I think we would owe something like $8 trillion. Now, had we done that, and this was a liberal president and he could have easily reformed entitlements in a way no conservative ever could have. He had the House, he had the Senate, and what did he do? He said, that's a great job. See, I wouldn't want to be. That's it. And they just canceled it. So, you know, we've tried this before. Everybody talks about waste, fraud. Nobody does a thing. Nobody does a thing. And so, and the judge, that just, just one other rant, the judge. Did you see Judge Furman, Jesse Furman, and New York that issued the stay on Mr. Khalil? Turns out his mother was very big liberal donor to the Tides foundation, who is funding some of the various activities that this Mr. Khalil has engaged in.
- [20:48]
Jack Fowler
Tides foundation is like, for our listeners, like Arabella, part of the huge funding of these very.
- [20:54]
Victor Davis Hanson
I know If I was a judge and if I was a judge and my mother was a big donor to a liberal organization that had a role in the case that I was. If this is true, I read it today, I'm not going to verify it, but I would have disqualified myself. But then if I was Judge Marshan, I would have disqualified myself. When my daughter was making a fortune on her Democratic consultant consultancy. Shit. Why I was adjudicating the Alvin Bragg case or maybe Judge Kaplan, I would have disqualified myself the minute I said that Donald Trump had basically committed rape when a jury found that he had not. And on and on and on.
- [21:41]
Jack Fowler
Victor, I want to. That was quite a rant. And there's more. I think there's more juice in that orange to be squeezed. But first, folks, let's talk about something right now, big, and that's tariff wars. President Trump's new tariffs could shake up the economy in 2025. 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico. 10%. Levy. Levy. Excuse me. Levy sounds like Jewish rye bread in New York on Chinese goods. This isn't just about trade. It's about your wallet. Big companies like Ford and Chipotle are already warning about rising costs. And many experts think the real impact on prices will be far worse. When prices go up, your savings lose value. And that's why our friends at American Alternative Assets are giving away a free wealth protection guide to help you protect your money before it's too late. History is repeating itself just like it always does, and we're in the biggest everything bubble of all time and it's getting ready to burst. So don't wait until it's too late. Call 1-888-615-8047 or visit victorlovesgold.com right now to claim your wealth protection Guide. Use the Code Victor to get started today. That's 1-888-615-8047 or visit victorlovesgold.com mention the code Victor to claim your free guide. Protect your wealth, secure your future before it's too late. Again. Call 1-886-15-8047 or visit. Victor loves gold.
- [23:11]
Victor Davis Hanson
And.
- [23:12]
Jack Fowler
And we thank the good people at American Alternative Assets for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hanson Show. Victor, two things. One, I want to plead my continued ignorance on one thing you mentioned. It's had to do with immigration. I still don't get the flying illegal immigrants into the United States. I can't get my arms or head around how the Biden administration actually put people in airplanes overseas.
- [23:45]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. And flew them Here I saw them come in. I saw them come in. I was at the Fresno airport on a late flight. I saw them come in. They came in with apps from Mexico. They just went and got on a little app and they applied for asylum. And there was no diplomatic passport control when they arrived. And they were. Some of the. I felt bad for them. They looked like some of the poorest people in the world. And they were coming in on two or three flights in the middle of the night. And there was no accident that flights from Mexico were scheduled at 12:31, 33:30 in the morning. And the airport took on a whole new life. I'm sure there were some people who were legal aliens and citizens that were on those flights, but it seemed like the majority of them from talking to security were not. And you know, this was an area where a lot of people were brought in. Governor Newsom just announced that he doesn't have $3.4 billion in Medi Cal, what we call Medicaid here for illegal aliens. Mostly it's exhausted. And I could have said if you'd gone two miles from my home to a big medical center and you would got had gotten there at 8 o'clock in the morning and seen the line, you would have seen why that is. Or if you'd gone to one of the specialists that I go to in Fresno and see the waiting room as compared to five years ago, you would have seen why it. You know, I don't want to be reductionist, Jacks, but do you think if Jill and Joe Biden had to. Let's say they had the flu and they wanted to go somewhere to get Tamiflu and they went into the local ER and it was like the Fresno County ERs. What would they do? Somebody would say, this is your policy. Stand in line. And I don't think they would have said, well, who did this? I got to get my health care. And that's how they. That's how this whole bicoastal elite functions. It's all based on. Everybody is a lab rat. We experiment with all these ideas and what do you expect?
- [26:01]
Jack Fowler
Picking up Victor on your, I think grant's the wrong word. Soliloquy.
- [26:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
But regardless, exegesis.
- [26:08]
Jack Fowler
Okay, Exegesis. There you go. On Ukraine, two things. One is the experts, the kvetchers actually part of the kvetching crew on the Bush administration. They were glorifying or obsessed with that countdown to was like, when was the 3,000th American soldier going to die? The TV screens.
- [26:31]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I remember that.
- [26:32]
Jack Fowler
And millions of people are dead in Ukraine and the oceans of blood. And it's still doesn't even come across in their.
- [26:41]
Victor Davis Hanson
No, they don't care. No, no, no. They want to. It has some sick thing to do with the Russian collusion, Russian disinformation, in other words. What I'm saying is they felt that James Comey and Andrew McCabe and all of them had the goods on Donald Trump in 2016 and it deald a and the whole thing blew up as a farce. And then they thought four years later they had the goods with Russian disinformation and top. And then that blew up and they wanted to say that Donald Trump is a Putin asset. They looked at the actual way that Donald Trump had treated Putin and I've gone through that before. Whether the Wagner group's destruction or warning about Nordstrom 2 is a bad idea, sanctioning it or flooding the world with cheap oil, getting out of a missile deal, etc. Etc. It didn't matter to them. So they had this upset that by. And then when you looked at Putin and you said to the left, and I've said this to people on the left, well, who were the people who pushed that Jacuzzi button in Geneva? It was Hillary. You were the people who wanted reset, not the conservatives. You were the ones that said George Bush was too hard after Osatia and Georgia, on the Russians, you did, you, you, you. You were the one that did the worst thing in the world. You appeased him. You let him go into the Donbass, you let him go into Crimea and then you went over to South Korea at Seoul, you had an open mic and said, this is my last election. Tell Vladimir I'll be flexible on missile defense if he'll give me space. That was an open invitation. And then when he started to mask you, Obama forbid the gifting of javelins to Ukraine and then Biden came in and he reversed the Trump order and he put a suspension. And you hear none of that from these people. It's always Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, and we have to fight to the last Ukrainian to stop this horror. Horrible. Yes, but you were the one that empowered Russia and there was a reason. It's almost a heresy among the left if you say something like the following and I've had this conversation, well, who do you think in the last four presidencies, Putin, during the last four presidency. He did not leave his. Don't even go there. That had nothing to do with it. Trump. That was just an accident. Maybe it was because he liked Trump. Oh, whatever. But he did not leave his borders during the Trump administration. And I understand Trump's art of the deal rhetoric and all of this stuff, but this was not his war. It was not his mess. He inherited it. And he was the only one trying to stop the bloodletting. They have destroyed that country, Ukraine, and they are running out of people. And one of the biggest problems he's having is, is that Vladimir Putin is using this meat grinder to wear down the Ukrainian manpower reserves. And if this thing goes on much longer, the Ukrainians are going to crack, and Putin knows that. And so Trump is trying to find some leverage to call him off before he just goes in there because he doesn't think the Europeans are going to send more tanks and planes and he doesn't believe any of their rhetoric at all. Not a word.
- [30:21]
Jack Fowler
Victor, there's an interesting article I've come across on the German military on that point. Let's get to that and some other thoughts still related to Ukraine when we come back from these important messages.
- [30:38]
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- [32:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
Before we continue, I want to tell you about what's really happening to your money. What economists politely call inflation, but what we've come to understand as government approved counterfeiting. Like many of you who've studied history, I've watched the pattern repeat throughout civilizations. The steady erosion of purchasing power as governments print money instead of making hard choices. Folks, I'm deeply concerned for the first time ever our nation is spending more on interest payments than on our military. That's why we've asked our friends at American Alternative Assets to share their Wealth Protection Guide. The guide explains how this hidden tax transfers wealth from savers to asset owners and why smart Americans are moving their retirement savings to to precious metals IRAs before inflation steals more of their future. These are true patriots who understand the mechanics of currency devaluation. Right now, they're offering our listeners up to $10,000 in free silver plus a free American made safe. They'll show you how generations of Americans have protected their purchasing power during times of monetary uncertainty. Call 1-800-886-18047 or visit Victor Loves Gold.com call 1-800-861-8047. Again, call 1-800-861/8047 and tell them Victor sent you.
- [33:42]
Jack Fowler
We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen show recording on Saturday. The well, this is the Ides of March. Actually the 15th of yes of March. This episode is up on March 18th. Tuesday, March 18th Victor's website the Blade of Perseus. You'll find it@victorhansen.com you should be subscribing if you're a fan of Victor's writing. He does two pieces a week exclusive for the Blade of Perseus, plus an exclusive 10 minute or so video on a hot topic. There are links galore to everything else Victor writes there, the podcast, this podcast, his books, etc. So do subscribe $65 a year, which is discounted from 650amonth. The Blade of Perseus Victor Here's a headline. German Military Faces Massive Shortage of Soldiers. An official report on the state of German military painted a grim picture on Tuesday, with a whopping 28% of positions among the lower enlisted ranks unfilled as of the end of 2024. The numbers were slightly better at higher service tiers, but the Bundeswehr was still missing nearly 20% of the required commissioned officers, the documents said. Houses house Germany, by the way, the average age of a soldier in Germany is 32.4 years. That was at the end of 2019. And now it's 34 years. Maybe they'll be handing out canes eventually, along with along with guns.
- [35:09]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I mean the German defense minister, remember he dressed Vance down at the security conference. They all do that. Stormer and Macron were as soon as Zelensky had the blow up in the White House, they started grandstanding. I did a Telegraph daily, I mean a London London Times interview with the host was pretty rude. And they were all sky high. The other guests, oh, this is a new era. We can't count on the Americans. We have all this wherewithal over here. We're going to redirect, we're going to rearm, we're going to be independent. And I'm thinking, I don't think so. I wish you would. Promises, promises. But since the EU was created, you were roughly the same GDP as the United States. And you've added a lot of countries and population which should have had you just soar ahead of us as far as gross domestic product. And you're about 60%. Your per capita income is about what Mississippi is. And Germany, the powerhouse or the former powerhouse of Europe, spends about 1.65 on defense. And nine other countries say if Germany's not going to do it, we're not going to do it. So, you know, that's just the way it is. They have a lot of, there's 500 million people, they have 2,000 jet fighters, they've got more artillery platforms than Russia does now. And Russia's exhausted. I mean, they've lost a lot of wherewithal and manpower. So they could step up big time. They could spend four or five hundred billion dollars, they could send five, six hundred planes tomorrow and then they wouldn't have to start yelling and screaming about how tough they are and how independent. They don't need the utility anymore, but they don't do that. They just, you know, they have a socialist state run economy and it's never going to be very productive at that way, so. And they hate Trump and they hate the MAGA movement and all they want to do is appeal to their bi coastal kindred in the United States.
- [37:16]
Jack Fowler
Victor, pick up one other thing. And we'll move on to some other topics about Ukraine and the meat grinder. I just finished reading de Gaulle's memoirs, which are, I recommend. It's a big book. It's a door stopper. It's a tremendous bit of writing. He's a terrific writer, but. So France, France and war is on my mind. The bloodletting of World War I and the depletion of men in France. So what happens in Ukraine now is, I mean, we possibly setting up some crisis 10 years from now or 20 years from now just based on the bloodletting.
- [37:53]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I mean, they're not going to have a. They lost a whole generation and nobody will tell us how many people. I think both sides are lying and they're lying and underestimate they probably have 500,000 wounded, casualties, dead, missing prisoners, in a country where they've lost 10 to 12 million people, have left the country. They're very brave fighters, but you know, the whole cohort between 18 and 22 is missing. I mean, they're not in the army. The army average age is in their early 30s, so. And yet they've held out. But if you try to talk like this, Jack and I work in an area where we have all of these famed experts in foreign policy and you say something empirical like, can you give me an example? During the 50 year Cold War in which according to the protocols of the Russian American nuclear tension and standoff, there was a war on the border, the direct border of either the United States or Russia, in which the other proxy tried to use a third party to harm its nuclear rival. And the closest I can come to is Cuba, 90 miles off the coast of Florida, in which Russia thought it was cute to give them both conventional and nuclear tipped missiles. And we went berserk and went to DEFCON 3 about it. I think actually we went up to Defcon 2, but I'll have to check that. DEFCON I, I guess DEFCON 4, is that what it is? It gets bigger. I'm sorry, smaller.
- [39:46]
Jack Fowler
I wasn't being def con myself there. I was just having trouble.
- [39:50]
Victor Davis Hanson
I'm just, I'm just. What I'm just trying to say is you're not supposed to say that it's a dangerous thing to feed an army right inside mother Russia right now, even though they have every justification to be there. They were attacked first. But there's, there's just, it's just. And then nobody can say, I mean, I don't hear anybody think saying, you know, at least Donald Trump talked about the bloodletting. He always does. He always talks about the human cost and how horrific it is. And that alone has, has suppressed some of the tensions with Russia. And you're not hearing all of these things, you know that we're going to nuke this and we're going to send a missile there that you heard for the last three years. So we'll see. And you have to be very careful with Putin. And he thinks he's in the driver's seat. But Donald Trump is going to have to have some lever to say to Putin if you don't come to the conference table, we're going to sanction anybody who sell, who buys your oil. And that can include Turkey or oil, India or anybody, China or it's going to have to do something like that if he's going to have any. I'm not advocating anything, Jack. I'm just saying as an outside observer, if you're art of the deal and he will not make a deal because he thinks that Europe is finished and Ukraine is exhausted, exhausted, and he can take over the whole country and you don't want that, then you're going to have to find some pressure on him. And the only thing I can think of, short of just and it's not politically possible to send another $300 billion to Ukraine or 200 billion or whatever we've sent politically not feasible.
- [41:37]
Jack Fowler
I mean, Americans don't want it. Well, Victor, let's talk about a little Trump rhetoric that's domestic. The president was yesterday, which I think the 14th he was at the Department of Justice giving a speech and this is a from a New York Post article, Trump says as the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred. Trump said in remarks that repeatedly focused on the criminal cases that the department's attorneys brought against him. Quote, our predecessors turn this Department of Justice into the Department of injustice. But I stand before you today to declare that those days are over and they are never going to come back. Trump told the crowd that included department members, members of Congress. Final paragraph here, folks. We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government. We will expose and very much expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct of which was levels. I'm sorry about the English. You've never seen anything like it. It's going to be legendary. Victor, your take on Donald Trump?
- [42:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I mean, nobody wants vengeance, but if there was wrongdoing and there was wrongdoing and it went back to the 2016 campaign when you had Loretta lynch, the former attorney general, meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac and the Phoenix airport, basically negotiating about what would be the fate of Hillary Clinton after she committed a felony of using an unsecure server to transmit State Department communications. Then she destroyed subpoenas under subpoenaed documents or emails, and she destroyed the devices, the hard drives, and nothing happened to her. And then we went full. We had everybody involved. We had Bruce Orr at the doj, we had Nellie Orr, his wife, working to disseminate the false dossier. We had Sally Yates, who was trying to Logan act to destroy Michael Flynn and set up and sent Comey in there, or Comey went in there and tried to and did without any warning. So that was all politicized the doj. And then, excuse me, I go back on that iconic date of. I think it was November 18, Jack, 2022, when, Joe, you got to remember what happened right there at that period. We're talking about the weaponization of the DOJ. So Donald Trump declared his candidacy on November 15th of 2022. And he probably did it in reaction to the week earlier spectacular victory of Ron DeSantis, who won by a million votes in the 22 gubernatorial race. Remember, that was supposed to be a red wave, but Trump was being blamed, fairly or not, for using MAGA candidates like Blake Masters or Dr. Oz or the guy. I thought he was pretty good, Adam Laxall. But the point I'm making is they thought they were the Senate and they didn't. And they felt that the MAGA candidates who had been endorsed by Trump in the primary were not effective in the general election. More importantly, the only bright spot, they did take back the House, but Biden only lost nine seats, which was historically pretty good. And you know, I wrote about it at the time. Well, maybe it was because of Roe versus Wade. That was in this early summer. They had overturned Roe, reit and that got a lot of money for the midterms. Then he tried to cancel student loans right on the eve of the midterms. He drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But whatever the reason was, the one bright spot was Ron DeSantis. He won by a million votes. Everybody should remember in 2018 he was an obscure congressman and he was going nowhere in the primaries. And then Donald Trump endorsed him and he won primary, I think, over the ag commissioner. And then in 2018, he only won by 30,000 votes. Remember that creepy guy Gilliam? Didn't he end up in a hotel room naked with a couple of other men taking drugs? But in any case, he was a wideness type of. Yeah, he was. And I think neither one won 50%. But when he came back four years later, he won by a million votes. And everybody. I went back once and looked at the polls, he was leading Donald Trump. So Donald Trump then immediately, a week later, declared his candidacy on November 15 after the midterm. And then all hell broke loose. The left went crazy. And three days later, on November 18th, think of it, everybody. Three things happened. Mr. Co Angelo, the third ranking DOJ. We're talking about the Department of Justice corruption. He had been hired by Merrick Garland after he had been working with Latif James and had gotten that Magus settlement. Originally 400 something million reduced, I think 380 million on a bogus real estate civil suit as Attorney general. So then he was riding high. He went to the DOJ to formulate obviously anti Trump policies. And then he quit on November 18 and he turned up four or five days later working for Alvin Bragg. The same day, Nathan Wade, the paramour of Fanny Willis, went to the White House and met with Biden's legal counsel team, formulating strategy, obviously about that. And that was on a RICO act that was so bogus, the idea that Trump said, I know there's votes there. Find me the 15,000. They're there. Oh, you broke the RICO Act. You're a mafioso like character. They indicted, I think 19 people. So that was the second thing on the same day. And then you know what the third was? Jack, he appointed Jack Smith special counsel, all on the same day. And then they said they had nothing to do, we're not coordinating. It was that type of corruption that Trump was talking about. Five civil suits. And then I think they coordinated with what, 26 states tried to take him off the ballot until the Supreme Court stopped that in March of 2024. So they waged war and they politicized the DOJ. They went after parents, school board meetings that objected to trans stuff. They went after abortion, Protestant anti abortion protesters. They did SWAT team virtues. The whole Mar Lago thing. Didn't need a SWAT team to find what, 102 classified files out of 14,000, 13 or 14,000. So they were out of control.
- [49:10]
Jack Fowler
Sins of, of omission there. Also, Victor, do you remember the people threatening the Supreme Court justices? Nothing was done by the doj. Actually, Merrick Garland said, oh, that's a matter for the.
- [49:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, they went right to. The guy was ready to kill Gorshutts and. Except he called his sister and she talked him out of it. Remember that? And that followed, what, a year and a half after Mr. Schumer, who was in the news again, got out in front of a big ant pro abortion mob that were hitting the doors of the Supreme Court when it was in session. And he was yelling, gorsuch Kavanaugh, you sowed the wind. You're going to weep the whirlwind. You're not going to know what's going to hit, hit you. That was a direct threat. If any private citizen did that, he'd probably be arrested.
- [49:59]
Jack Fowler
Well, let's talk a little more about him. But first I just want to take a moment for our sponsor, Quint. Quint has all the must haves, like Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50 iconic 100% leather jackets and comfortable pants for every occasion. The best part, all Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes on the savings to you and me. To us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices along with premium fabrics and finishes. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quince.comVictor for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Quince Quince Q U I N C E.comVictor to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comVictor we thank the good people of Quince for once again sponsoring the Victor Davis Hanson Show. Victor, we have a couple of Senate things, so let's take one of them and that is the just aforementioned Charles Schumer, who I think he's been in the Senate for since late 90s, so about 25 years. He's up for reelection in 2026. He I know you talked about this with Sammy about the reconciliation bill and he moved to have Democrats, some Democrats vote for it, House Democrats wanted him to fight. He caved, quote, unquote caved. And now there's a push to get the great AOC to challenge him in a primary. And she was asked about that and did not say no. Your thoughts?
- [51:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, she won't win if she tries it. The problem they all have is that when they were spending $7 trillion and the Republicans had retaken the House and they were dead even in the Senate, Senate. So there was a possibility of a Senate filibuster or a House shutdown. They're all on record, Pelosi in the House, Schumer, the squad, how horrible it would be, how terrible it would be to shut down the government. That's what they said. And now the shoes on the other foot and now they're saying that's the only thing that can be done if you shut down the government. When the Doge people are trying to cut out superfluous positions after about two weeks and the government still functioning, I think it's a bad strategy on their part to do that. It really is. Everybody's got to remember that the left is so hysterical about a paltry $100 billion in cuts that that's not enough. We're not even on schedule to save. We've got to get a trillion dollars or a trillion and a half even to get close. And we're not getting there. But yet, if they're that hysterical about this small level of cuts and this huge budget, what do they recommend? What do they recommend? They're not even faking it. Like Obama and Al Gore and Clinton. They're not even faking it. They don't have any solutions other than, I don't know, eliminate the Defense Department. That's Bernie Sanders idea. I suppose. So I don't know what they have. No, they have no. It's like, why don't they just say, look, we ran up $7 trillion and we're happy we did. We destroyed the border because we don't believe in borders. And we got 12 million really poor people and we were alleviating poverty and Oaxaca, Micho Khan, Chiapas. That's what we wanted to do. And they're here in the United States now and they'll be good Democrats in about three or four years. That was the plan and we're not ashamed of it. And we don't believe that people should be responsible necessarily for shoplifting or taking things that are not theirs because, you know, a bunch of wealthy white people made laws about stealing sneakers because they don't steal sneakers and they're arbitrary. That's their whole philosophy. And why don't they just say, you know what, this is who we are? Well, they did in 2024. And people said we don't like you on the border, we don't like you on energy, we don't like you on crime, we don't like you on foreign policy, we don't like you on inflation, we don't like you on trans. We don't like you on anything. And they lost. So viva Nero.
- [54:50]
Jack Fowler
Hey, Victor, One other Senate thing and we'll get to. We're going to take a break soon and want to get your thoughts on Alan Simpson, who you mentioned before. Do that after the break. But your favorite mayor, Pete Buttigieg from the former mayor of South Bend the finds racism in highways. Department of Transportation Secretary under Biden who was going to move to Michigan, was talking about running for Senate for Michigan, announced he's not running for Senate. He wants to spend more time with his family. I don't know, maybe he wants to chest feed another future child. Anyway, have we seen the last of Pete Buttigieg, your thoughts about him?
- [55:34]
Victor Davis Hanson
No one out there who's listening believes any of that, Jack. They believe one thing, that he commissioned a pollster in Michigan and said, what would be my chances of winning the senatorial or gubernatorial primary and winning a general election they came back and said you're the antithesis of the working class in Michigan and you would have zero chance because you're a sanctimonious, irritating, arrogant and we don't want you here. Go back to wherever you came from. And that was what he found out. So now he's going to turn his attention elsewhere. He was the one that gave us equity highways and equity this. And if we to the degree we have a problem with the air traffic controllers that came in during his four year tenure where it was all di A to Z, maybe he'll never live that down. Where he got into a limo and he pulled out his little bike and rode the last mile to work with that ridiculous outfit again.
- [56:40]
Jack Fowler
Performance art is they is the is the modus operandi for that party. Hey Victor.
- [56:46]
Victor Davis Hanson
He was terrified to go to East Palestine for months. Remember that?
- [56:49]
Jack Fowler
Right? Yeah. Well, we're going to take a break here, Victor. We'll kind of come back and get your thoughts about your late friend Alan Simpson. You have one more topic to talk about also. We'll do that right after these final important messages.
- [57:08]
Victor Davis Hanson
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- [60:39]
Jack Fowler
We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen show. It's Saturday the 15th of March when we're recording this episode is up on the 18th, Tuesday the 18th, the day after St. Patrick's Day, the day before St. Joseph's Day. These are important matters when you live in New York, Victor. I don't know out in the, out on the west coast, but the outer borough, well, it's the Irish versus the Italians, you know, Might as well be the Sharks versus the Jets. West side Story. Victor Allen Simpson, the former senator, the aforementioned also Simpson Bowles Bill. I think he was the son of a senator too, or a governor.
- [61:19]
Victor Davis Hanson
His dad was, I think his father was governor. He's from a political family. I think his son ran for political office and almost won. His brother, his, I know his brother well, who's a wonderful person, was a professor at, you know, I think it was the University of Wyoming. I knew him for 20 years and each summer I saw him and we had a polite debate maybe 15 years ago on Simpson Mazzoli, the 1986 Immigration Act. And I was very polite. And basically it was. We gave an amnesty before we had any mechanism of enforcing the law. And so the idea that the border patrol pulled back from the border and then we turned over the enforcement to the employer with those i9 forms, which were flooded with fake forms and there was no mechanism to verify them. E verify didn't work, was a great idea, but it was smashed. So I think the Simpson Bowles, he was in his 80s. That was 2010. So that was 15 years ago. He was 93. So he was. My gosh, he was about 78 when he did that. And he was magnificent. He was tireless. You know, people. People forget that he and Erskine Bowles, when they chaired that committee, came up with those recommendations. They didn't just end there. He spoke all over the country in his 80s. Travel. I remember talking to him. I said, al, you don't you look tired. Oh, I'm having a great time. Don't worry. I'm flying all over the country trying to save the country. Victor, we're all going broke. We got to save the country. And he was the thing about that. I went back and looked at it. It was very modest. It was gradual. It would have been very little pain. It was a simplification of the tax code. It encouraged investment. It was just stop the spending and get to a balanced budget within five to eight years and then slowly pay back the debt. And had we done that, as I said, we would be about maybe 8 to 10 trillion right now instead of 35 trillion and with balanced budgets. And we could do that again. All we'd have to do is say, let's just go back to the budget we had before COVID to 2019. We'd have a huge surplus.
- [63:48]
Jack Fowler
He had a very strong reputation for being a funny guy.
- [63:53]
Victor Davis Hanson
He was very funny. He told a joke every time I saw him. Hey, Victor, have you heard the latest? He told everybody jokes and they were all. Some of them were off color, but they were all funny. And he had a wonderful, beautiful wife and children who were great. Very close to the Chaney family and very close with all the Wyoming politicians.
- [64:16]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well, they've turned out some powerful people out of that state. Some of them did. Great disappointment, but nevertheless powerful folks. May he. May he rest in peace. And I love that phrase.
- [64:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
He.
- [64:28]
Jack Fowler
I forget exactly what it was.
- [64:30]
Victor Davis Hanson
The old kick of the gazoo. He said his mother was going to get angry if she heard him say that. I remember that was. Can think of when you have the Senate today using the word, you know, in a video. And he. And gentleman Alan Simpson apologizing for using the word kazoo. And that was, that was. He was an independent maverick. He wasn't. He was hard to pin down politically. He was very concerted on some issues, but on gay marriage and abortion, he was a moderate. So he was very different.
- [65:09]
Jack Fowler
Well, he was fierce on the Judiciary Committee also, so he was a powerful figure. Victor, we're around the home stretch here and let's talk about one more thing. We talked last week or the week before about Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase. He's the CEO there and he issued some. He actually had a very viral phone call with staff about you guys. Enough of this viral crapola. You're going to come to work five days a week, work hard, work in the office. You can't make it, you can't cut it. You're not going to work here anyway. There's a piece in the Daily Mail out today as JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon pushes forward with an uncompromising return to office office mandate. Hundreds of JP Morgan employees have quietly banded together and what is shaping up to be a full blown corporate mutiny. But the workers are not gathering in boardrooms or on the office floor, but in secret encrypted chat groups in a kind of digital underground growing network of frustrated bankers and managers applauding a response to the company's strict return to office orders. How dare. How dare.
- [66:23]
Victor Davis Hanson
Isn't it funny that everybody, that advance and mosque are these singularly polarizing public figures? And then when anybody else tries to shock the country back into normality, normalcy or whatever term we prefer, they're demonized in the same fashion. So what he's trying to do is so modest. He just says, you know, we pay you lots of money and so we need to have in person meetings. And it's. I just don't think those guys have a lot of leverage. I really don't. I don't. I always. There's something about him I've always liked about Jamie Dimon. I know that he's very, he was very critical of Trump and then he was less critical. But every time they put him on the spot to make a predictable announcement, he always is unconventional, you know, I mean, contrarian. He's very well spoken. I think he's a cancer survivor. I think diamond, he's. And I'll have to check this, people. So I'm just doing this by memory. I think he's from an Anatolian Greek family, isn't he be correct?
- [67:35]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, I checked that out last time we spoke. Yes, he's.
- [67:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Those are the toughest people in the world. They're the toughest people in the world. I. They're the inheritors of the Byzantine Empire. I mean, they were the. They lived in the roughest neighborhood in the world. And a million of them were ethnically cleansed during the Smyrna disaster. So many of them came to. As I said in an earlier broadcast, I lived on Asia Minor street in Athens. I got to know. And that was in 1973, and they had been there for 50 years. So I met these young people, people who had come there in their 20s and they were in their 70s, and they would say, Victor, Victor Thavma, you was a one. You would not believe what they did. They drove us into the ocean, they burned our synagogues, they flayed our priests, they beheaded people. But they ethnically cleansed all of the remaining population that had been there for three millennia. So he's from that diaspora. People forget that that was the wealthiest part of the Greek Byzantine Empire was the coast of Ionia. It's like the San Joaquin Valley. It's just the most beautiful, fertile area in the world. Smyrna. We always know from figs, the Smyrna fig varieties. And I've been there a lot. It's a beautiful country. It's the richest in antiquities at Meletus and Ephesus and. And Didyma Halicarnassus down near Bodrum. It's just a wonderful place. It's a great tragedy because that was the breadbasket of the Byzantine Empire for a millennia. Millennium.
- [69:16]
Yeah.
- [69:16]
Jack Fowler
Kind of interesting. Some of the places that were once the great centers of wealth, even here in America. New Bedford, Massachusetts, which is now Natchez, Mississippi.
- [69:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
There's a little town that my grandfather was from. He. He lived in a. Kingsburg is a. Is a big Swedish town even today. But about six miles away, there was a little town called Traver, and it has like one store today. But in the 1880s, it was one of the greatest wheat production era centers on the railroad shipping for it. It had the highest per acre production of wheat anywhere in the country. And it was just a very prosperous place. I'd always say to my grandfather, when did you come to Kingsborough? Yeah, I live in Traber, not Kingsburg, Trevor. So it's still there. I drive by there once in a while. There's all these little towns in the San Joaquin Valley that are deserted, kind of like Michigan when I'm in Hillsdale. I used to get my bike and go to all these semi ghost towns. You know, I ride my bike out there. They're everywhere, they're eerie. Eerie. I'd go to Osteo. Very eerie Michigan because they'd all had been so prosperous. They were all on, you know, they were all on the trunk rail lines at the. And they were booming in the 1910s, 20s and 30s as subcontractors and sub sites suppliers for the auto industry. And then they had farming areas and then they'd had little factory, mom and pop little factories. And then they would put their product and send it on the rail to Detroit. And so it was like Detroit was the hub and there were all these rural communities and they're all, they're all wiped out. It's another thing I don't, you know, when I read the Wall Street Journal I get this tariff, tariff that tariff, tariff, tariff, tariff, tariff, tariff, tariff, tariff, tariff. They should come. When I graduated from high school here in this local high school there was a Fruehof trailer production. You wouldn't believe it Jack. They built semi trailers. And everybody in my high school that didn't go to college, which I think there was eight or nine of us went out of 240 that went to the four year college. But they all, when I would come back from, from UC Santa Cruz at Christmas they go Victor, why are you in College? We're making $7 an hour union wages at the Fruhof. And then some of them worked at the upright harvester making world. They sent them all over the world. It was a mechanical grape picking machine. And then they used another, the Libby Canning calcan. There were all these big cooperatives that shipped canned peaches all over the world. This is before the EU flooded the market with subsidized canned fruit. And this little town had all of these fabrication and factories and the whole middle classes were prosperous. And that was completely wiped out in the 70s and 80s, just desolate. And that happened to all these little communities and some of them have revived a little bit. But why can't people just say these people were not lazy, they were hard working and they had a good product. But they under George H.W. bush and then Bill Clinton and then George W. Bush and then Barack Obama. The idea was go to China and hire a bunch of cheap labor and move your factory over there and then send it back to the United States to tariff free undercut prices. Allow us to keep spending a lot of money and you because lower inflation by dumping Chinese assembled products. In the United States. And you are very patriotic because your prosperity and you're becoming billionaires and you will show the Chinese about the way of capitalism and then they will be capital capitalist and then after a while they'll be so affluent they will become EU democrat. That was the whole ring, right? Yeah. I mean I've had people write that to me. I've had people tell me that. I've heard that for 20 years where I work. And it didn't happen that way. It destroyed lives for multi generational. Same thing with agriculture. It was the same idea. Well, let's go plant all of these tree fruit and vineyards all over Latin America. You see, they'll just synchronize with our. They won't compete against our harvest dates, but they'll give the American consumer a winter vegetable or winter fruit and then they will buy yours in harvest time. And the problem was they can keep something in cold storage for six months and it destroyed the whole small fruit industry in California. But I'm not suggesting protectionism and I have, you know, I'm a free market person basically. But this idea that tariffs are evil and I just, I wish Trump could articulate and just say to all of us and the people overseas, the Canadians and the Mexicans, the Mexicans are running up $171 trillion this year. It's a record. And the Canadians are doing 63 billion record. And why don't they just say to them, you were part of a free trade organization at one time. The whole idea was that we were all going to be brothers in trade and we were going to have open borders and there would be parity, symmetrical parity, and no one would have taken advantage. And then what did you do? You invited in the Chinese, they assembled your product. Does Mexico have a better infrastructure? A better judicial system? Are you much more productive than we are? Why are you running up 171 billion dollar surplus? We shouldn't make fun of you. We don't want you as a 51st state. That's wrong of us to do that. But please tell us why you deserve a 63 billion dollar. Just tell us. That's all we want to know. Is it okay? You need to protect your butter industry. 293% tariff on butter or milk. Timber. Just tell us and tell us why you don't want to spend money as a NATO partner. Just tell us. 1.37 Just tell us. Build some icebreakers, help us. But don't just sit there and say, how dare you Americans, you bullies, you Bullies. This is a modest little surplus. If it's a modest little surplus, then you have a 63 billion dollar and that's a big deal. And say the same thing with Ms. Sheinbaum. Well, it's no big deal. She says, well, then you have, you run up 170. And then you know what we'll have? We'll send 12 million Americans illegal into your country and see if you like it. See, you know, it's never. Or we'll have, you know, the same thing with the cartel. So my attitude is, I think the people listening, the attitude is we just want them to explain and justify what they're doing. Just say, we can't control the cartels. We're sorry we're killing 70,000Americans a year, but we need the fentanyl from China. We do make 20 or 30 billion dollars off coyotes and drug sales. And we do get 63 billion dollars in remittances from our illegal aliens who you subsidize to free up cash. And we do get 171. And Canada does get 63. And you put it all together, you're getting close to $300 billion in capital leaving this country. And they hate us. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, they do.
- [77:12]
Jack Fowler
So, Victor, you know who doesn't hate us, doesn't hate you. Our listeners.
- [77:18]
Victor Davis Hanson
They love you, I hope. I love my listeners.
- [77:21]
Jack Fowler
Well, good. We've come essentially to the conclusion of this. You've been terrific today, my friend. You know, our listeners do catch us on various platforms and including Rumble. Now, some people are watching this on, on Rumble as a video. I'll shave next time, Victor. I promise. Those who are on Apple can rate the show zero to five stars. And once again, practically everyone gives Victor five star stars, 4.9 plus average. And we get lots of comments. I even get some comments by email. And here's one I. Because St. Patrick's Day is kind of in the air. Sorry to ram it down your throats. This quite coincidental. Got an email since it's titled Sincere thanks to you and Victor from Ireland, from Thomas Murtaugh, who writes, Dear Jack, I want to thank you and Victor for the excellent weekly current affairs analysis in the VDH podcast. Over here in Ireland and Europe in general, over 90% of the English language media commentaries are consistently filled with irrational liberal babble. Victor's clear, logical, reasoned analysis has become my template to deal with and counterbalance. That said Babel from the mainstream media. On a lighter note, I notice you and Victor often expresses being underwhelmed by your great Italian and Irish Catholic heritage. At least the Italian elements benefits from the great history of the Roman Empire. However, I fear the currency of the Irish Catholic heritage element is much lower in his view. And this is where I was going to. My theory is that the outcome of the Battle of Clontarf in Dublin in 1014 AD never heard of it. Where the Irish comprehensively defeated the Vikings, may be a factor.
- [79:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't know about that, Victor.
- [79:04]
Jack Fowler
There's a lot of.
- [79:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
We had some setbacks, but we usually beat the Irish.
- [79:09]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Just to end. To let you know this. St. Patrick, St. Joseph, you know, it's very interesting here. Well, having grown up in New York City and these neighborhoods, thickly Italian, thickly Irish, and the Italians always had a chip on their. I'm half Italian. They always had a chip on their shoulder about the Irish. A, because they came over here and the Irish spoke the language and they didn't, and B, because their big Italian Feast Day is St. Joseph's Day, but it comes two days after St. Patrick's Day. Nobody treats St. Joseph's Day like St. Patrick's Day gets treated. And there's. There's some resentment.
- [79:43]
Victor Davis Hanson
I had an Irish grandmother, she was completely Irish. And she used to say to me. She had a slight Southern accent. She was born in New Mexico. And she said, I got to apologize. I gave you monkey eyes, Victor. Your eyes are so reset in your head. And I said, no, they're not. I like my eyes. No, they're Irish monkey eyes like mine. And then she would say, and no, no. She had 12 brothers and sisters. And she said, none of us got over five, six. But didn't you. Our daughter, dear Pauline, married a six, three and a half Scandinavian and saved you. Saved you.
- [80:25]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [80:26]
Victor Davis Hanson
The Irish.
- [80:26]
Jack Fowler
The Irish, Herschel, are conscious of their. What they think are their.
- [80:30]
Victor Davis Hanson
She had that Irish. She was, of all the people in my family, the most upbeat and smiley, smiling, you know, always that Irish. I know everybody says it can be brooding, but she was so upbeat.
- [80:46]
Jack Fowler
Victor, to our listeners, too late, but hope you had a happy St. Patrick's Day. Hope tomorrow you have a happy saint.
- [80:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, well, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be flying out and seeing if I can kick this final vestigial fatigue flu. And I gotta go work for the Hoover Institution in Palm beach for a week.
- [81:06]
Jack Fowler
Hope there are no dogs sitting next to you on airplanes. Victor, you've been terrific.
- [81:11]
Victor Davis Hanson
At least the dogs that don't pass wind. How's that?
- [81:14]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Bring a can of Febreze with you.
- [81:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thanks.
- [81:18]
Jack Fowler
Thanks everyone. Okay, for listening. We will be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Bye Bye.
- [81:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you everybody for listening.
- [81:28]
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