← Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Chicago Illegal Alien Murder, Europe’s Islam Accommodation, and Trump’s Iran Strategy | Victor Davis Hanson
01:29:22
Victor Davis Hanson and Sami Winc discuss the killing of Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old freshman at Loyola University, in Chicago and criticize Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s sanctuary-state stance, delayed response, and reluctance to cooperate with ICE, arguing Democrats downplay victims and shift blame to Trump while crime rises amid gun restrictions.
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Show Host
Hey, sorry to interrupt your playlist, but real quick, this might be better than music. We're talking free stuff. Yep, actually free. Just download TikTok, search free, pick items you want, share the link and watch the price drop to zero. Your song will be waiting. Your free Items won't open TikTok and start slashing. Now,
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Victor Davis Hanson
what is the governor to do? Because he has been on record that his whole state is a sanctuary state, that ICE is a fascist organization, that he won't cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement. And so that there are going to be criminals in Chicago system that are here illegally, thousands of them, and he won't turn them over. Their supporters all say, well, it's not a criminal offense to enter the United States. It actually is. But if it was just a civil offense, that would mean that we can just grow. Drive 80 miles an hour in a school zone and say, oh, it's a civil offense. Especially when you couple that with efforts to basically disarm the American population. California trying to force every single gun you inherit to be registered or to not issue concealed weapons permits. And the idea is that, well, there's crime and if you want protection, you got to come to us because we have a monopoly on guns. And that's called the police. And, oh, your neighborhood is a little dangerous. You had a break in. Who did you vote for? What's your ideology? Maybe we can get a patrol out there, maybe not. That's how they think. It's never them because they live in secure neighborhoods and they have security patrols. Unless you're Jasmine Crockett and your security person is a criminal who tries to shoot it out with police. But otherwise, most security patrols are there to protect you, not to shoot police. You don't know the guy's name. Guy Bath or Guy Bath. Is that his name? He's the speaker of the Parliament. Contradiction of paradox. There is no free parliament. There's a parliament that okays what the theocracy says. But if he were to say, have a mot, that we should have a secular city or something, he would be dead.
- [02:16]
Show Host
Hello and welcome to Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. We're glad you joined us today. This is our Friday news roundup and we're going to go over lots of news from the week. We've got on deck the Sheridan Gorman murder in Chicago and and then also the kowtowing to Islam in the Western countries. So stay with us and we'll be right back from these messages to talk about those stories.
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Bradley Devlin
Hey, I'm Bradley Devlin and just like you, I'm a huge fan of Victor Davis Hansen, whether it's his long form podcast, Victor Davis Hansen in his own Words, or his short form content for the Daily Signal. Victor Davis Hansen, in a few words. I always leave an episode learning something new.
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Victor Davis Hanson
I think they forgot the 1982 Falklands War.
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Bradley Devlin
And in the age of clickbait and rage bait, that's a really good feeling right?
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Victor Davis Hanson
The media. Thank you. You can leave now.
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Bradley Devlin
Well, if you agree, you might like my show, the Daily Signals long form interview podcast called the Signal. Sit down. Every week we take you behind the scenes of the biggest battles in Washington, D.C. as they happen with some of the biggest names in politics. We explore big ideas and we analyze the policymaking process from an unabashedly and unapologetically conservative perspective. And that's important now more than ever with the Trump administration back in office, because in 2024 you sent was a message it couldn't ignore. It's your government and together we're taking it back. So check us out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen, we're there too. And drop me a follow on X Radley Devlin to stay updated with what's happening on the Signal. Sit down.
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Show Host
Welcome back to Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words. Victor's the Martin and Neely Anderson Senior Fellow in Military History and Classics at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marshabusky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. You can find him at his website, victorhansen.com the name of the website is the Blade of Perseus and you can get lots of free stuff there, but you can also become a subscriber. So please join us. There's two articles a week that Victor's choosing on topic, and then also a video for the week on Fridays. So Victor just wanted to talk shortly about the Sheridan Gorman killing, which was very sad, especially obviously, and our hearts go out to her family. But she was gunned down basically in the streets by an illegal alien. And what I wanted to address on that is that there was an older woman in Chicago who said basically that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then J.B. pritzker came out with a statement. Finally, after four days. He couldn't make a statement before condolences to her family. But I was wondering, don't the Democrats realize that just as bad as getting to the being on the losing side is getting to getting there too late, I. E. Leaving four days before he actually came out to say something not to mention the wrong opinion by the older woman. But your ideas.
- [05:23]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, the second question, what is the governor to do? Because he has been on record that his whole state is a sanctuary state, that ICE is a fascist organization, that he won't cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement, and so that there are going to be criminals in the Chicago system, the judicial system, the penal system, that are here illegally, thousands of them, and he won't turn them over. And that sends a message to illegal immigrants that somehow, in bewildering fashion, they're exempt from the law. In other words, and their supporters all say, well, it's not a criminal offense to enter the United States. It actually is. Is. But if it was just a civil offense, that would mean that we can just drive 80 miles an hour in a school zone and say, oh, it's a civil offense, it's not a criminal offense. So he knows that he's culpable for it. His policies are culpable. He knows that Donald Trump has had success in cities like Washington and Memphis by bringing in federal troops to help stop these out of control murder rates. So he refused all that. So he gets together with his advisors for four days and he said, what are we going to do? And one of them probably said to him, let's just keep it quiet. Four days from now, it won't be a sensational article. We got the Sun Times, the Chicago Tribune. They're not going to report it, so we'll just wait them out. And then finally people say, well, the right wing is reporting it. So then they said, well, maybe Governor, we can blame Trump because he said he was going to concentrate on criminals. You think, well, yeah, that would be the stupidest thing in the world because that's exactly what Trump is doing. And he's arrested and deported hundreds of thousands of them. But that was the only avenue he had. So he came out four days later and said, it's Donald Trump's fault. He said he was going to get criminals and he didn't get criminals. Now, we didn't cooperate with him and we didn't want ICE here. And he deported thousands of criminals in other places and including at times in Illinois, but he didn't get this guy. It's his fault. The other thing is the city council woman or the older woman who said, wrong place, wrong time. That's now a very common theme when there's particular types of perpetrators. If it's a black youth and people might associate that increased crime rate with black youths, then the left will deliberately downplay the victim and blame the victim. So for example, the Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed by Decarlos Brown with what, 11 or 12 previous convictions, he was let out. What did the left report that story as? A vicious, hardened career criminal who slashed her throat. Why people just walked over her corpse, literally. No, he said it's a reminder when you go into a train, be aware of your surroundings and don't fixate on your cell phone because she was looking like this while he was, it was almost like a horror movie that he was looking over his shoulder ready to pounce while she was just Freddy Krueger like. And so that's what they did here. They said they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Meaning if you're in our city and you're a co ed and there's the northern lights that are going to appear at one o', clock, group of people who assemble in numbers so you're safe, can walk out a few blocks from your dorm to appear and look out at Lake Michigan and see the northern lights. Well, that's the wrong place and the wrong time. So what she didn't want to say is that we have a policy of illegal immigration. We know there's criminals here, we know they shouldn't be turned loose. They know that there are many of them are vicious. But we also know that under the mail in balloting system and the lack of an ID and the number of states, I think it's almost 20 states have registered more voters than the voters in the state who are eligible to vote at 18 by a magnitude. And so basically she's saying we're not going to endanger this system in which we, under the Motor Voter act of Bill Clinton that we automatically mail out registrations and ballots to people who have driver's license. And that's a good, that's a big constituency of ours and we're losing our constituencies. So we're not going to do anything to endanger that stream of voters. And you can as soon as this, as sure as the sun rises. If Donald Trump leaves office in 28 and JD Vance or Marco Rubio do not get elected, they will open the border again and they will this time get 20 million. They don't care about the poor whose social services are swamped. They don't care about the increased violence, they don't care about the lack of medical background checks. This particular person, I'm not just being, by the way, people listening, I'm not just trying to be inflammatory. This particular murder can't even come to trial because he has an active tuberculosis case. And so if you don't test people coming into the country en masse for things like Covid or tuberculosis or worse, malaria, then you've got a problem on your hands and that the left doesn't care. It's a very. I think maybe it's a psychological effort to square the circle because they are such selfish, callous people that they always pose as caring, but they. They do things that are just utterly uncaring and destructive. And they have throughout history.
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Show Host
Yes. And I think that we have to all acknowledge that when you bring in 500,000 criminals and have a policy of allowing criminals back out on the street, you make far too many places the wrong place at the wrong time.
- [11:42]
Victor Davis Hanson
Especially when you couple that with efforts to basically disarm the American population. California tried trying to force every single gun you inherit to be registered or to not issue concealed weapons permits. And the idea is that, well, there's crime, and if you want protection, you got to come to us because we have a monopoly on guns. And that's called the police. And, oh, your neighborhood is a little dangerous. You had a break in. Who did you vote for? What's your ideology? Maybe we can get a patrol out there, but maybe not. That's how they think.
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Show Host
Yeah. And their constituency thinks. Well, it wasn't me. Therefore, I guess it was the exception to the rule. Right, Right.
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Victor Davis Hanson
It's never them because they live in secure neighborhoods and they have security patrols.
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Show Host
All right.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Unless you're Jasmine Crockett and your security. Oh, no person is a criminal who tries to shoot it out with police. But otherwise, most security patrols are on yours. Are there to protect you, not to shoot police.
- [12:47]
Show Host
Yeah, and that's the other thing.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Of course, nobody talked about that, did they?
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Show Host
No.
- [12:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
And a member of Congress had a head of her security detail who had all these false names, checkered record and stands off with pleas. And they politely ask him to put down the gun. He starts aiming it, you know.
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Show Host
Well, Victor, I'd like to welcome back a sponsor of our show, Allegiance Gold. If you've studied enough history, you start to see a pattern. Nations don't lose their way overnight. They drift through debt and division until one day you realize the foundations you thought were permanent were never permanent at all. Today, America is spending at levels once reserved for wartime. We've normalized deficits that would have stunned earlier generations. And policymakers now debate whether the only path forward is more intervention, more printing, more distortion. But here's the historical truth. Every society that pushes its currency beyond discipline eventually paid a price. The wise never waited for the collapse. They prepared for the correction. That's why so many thoughtful Americans, especially those nearing retirement or in retirement, are reallocating part of their wealth into something that has outlasted every paper experiment in human history. Physical gold not as speculation, but as insulation. Our reputation matters to us here at the Victor Davis Hansen show, in his own words, which is why we've partnered with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability and an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. For years they've guided Americans through transparent education and long standing relationships built on trust. And right now they're extending a special liberty offer for our listeners to help you get started with real gold, whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in the bank. If you believe, as we do, that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious. Call 844-790-9191 that's 847-909191 or visit ProtectWithVictor.com that's again 8447-909191-84479, 09191 or visit ProtectWithVictor.com history rewards those who take the long view and we'd like to thank Allegiance Gold for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. If you want to find Victor on social media he is available on X. His handle is Ed Hansen and on Facebook he has a page called Hanson's Morning cup. So please come join him there. Well Victor, let's turn then to an article by Tim o' Brien in Pajamas Media and the title of it says everything. And he has lots of examples that he wants to talk about but he says title Europe shows how it deserves to be conquered by Islam. And he goes through a series of examples of a man in Dundee, Scotland that was beaten by four Muslims for walking past a mosque with his dog during prayer time and a German church that was forced to listen to the call to prayer by an iman Spain allowing lots of illegal Muslims in and then finally the acceptance of destroying Christian statues but not touching Islamic statues in the European continent. But I would like to add to that. Melanie Phillips was talking, was being interviewed and she said Britain no longer knows how to defend itself because of the anti western education and media in Britain. Again there is an exhibition showing Jews eating babies in an art gallery which is pretty offensive and while we're all for free expression etc. That is beyond the pale against on antisemitism and then again the long history of gang rapes of Muslims of young British girls. And I was wondering your thoughts on that particular subject.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Well, it's very baffling. Britain only has 6 or 7%. I know they say that the most popular name now for children is Mohammed, but that's because half of Muslim children are male or named Mohammed where there's thousands of names for so called Christian children. Right. Jesus or Jesus is not half of the names. So. So what I'm Getting at is 6 or 7% of the population are Muslim. Now I understand that about 16, almost like the United States, percent of their resident population is foreign born and a lot of those come from the Middle East. So I would be a little skeptical when they say 6% Muslim. That's probably maybe 10%, but nonetheless it's a minority. So what I'm getting at is if the British people are in a consensual society and they vote and they feel this is a problem, which they increasingly do, then they have the tools to stop it. And the reason that they don't stop it, they say is because of diversity, equity and inclusion and inclusiveness and tolerance and ecumenicalism. I don't believe that. I don't believe it for one second. I believe if right now there were Jewish gangs attacking Muslims and normal citizens and there was something called the Christian Crusade movement and they started letting off bombs at Christmas, taking hostages, cutting off the heads of Islamic teachers and the Islamic community was not doing that, then they would start going out and breaking up those Christian or Jewish gangs and they would start, if they were not citizens, they would deport them in two seconds. So why? The difference is because they are terrified if they make a cartoon. And I think the two Belgian people discussing why it was okay to hit a statue of Christ but they wouldn't dream doing that of the Prophet is they were scared and they have reason to be. When you mock Jesus, there's not in your. If you write something called the Satanic Verses and it's not about Islam, but it's about the Christian Satan, for example, and you're on a stage discussing it, there's very little chance that a Southern Baptist fanatic or Church of Christ person is going to go up and stab you in the eye. It's very rare that somebody in, I don't know, a Christian country, New Zealand, Australia, is going to have a fatwa and say anybody who kills this author will go to heaven. I don't think that's going to happen. But they're scared of Islam and at some point we're going to have A reckoning. And I don't know which way it's going to go. One of two things are going to happen this insidiously, because the Muslim community, the radical Muslim community, feels that it is here, as they often say privately, to change the. The culture or the nature of Western civilization by demography and by not assimilating, acculturating, or integrating. But at some point, if that were to be true and they get to a peak point, you don't know what the resistance will say. No, we're the country of Shakespeare and we're the country of Jane Austen and we're the country of Churchill, and we're not going to turn over at this date our country and our civilization, our culture to you. We're just not going to do it. So you either integrate and you assimilate and you follow the rules like everybody else and be treated exactly the same, or leave. And we'll see what happens. Whether they still have a Churchill in them. Maybe there's going to be a politician like Margaret Thatcher or Churchill that comes out of the shadows and says, not yet. Not yet. But we have the same problem in the United States. And you can see it with Islamophobia. You can't. Anytime a Jew is killed at a museum, as we saw in Washington, or governor's mansion in Pennsylvania is firebombed, or somebody rams a car from a Lebanese naturalized citizen into a Michigan synagogue, you can't utter that without Islamophobia. Islamophobia is kind of like a little get out of jail card. So when you say there was a Muslim person, he went into Old Dominion, he killed a decorated war hero who won't be with us anymore, he yelled Allah Akbar. There were two naturalized citizens that were Muslims. They drove all the way to New York. They tried to kill in mass fashion, a counter demonstration. They put two IEDs. They threw them out there. Their purpose was to kill. They yelled Allah Akbar. They also said that they wanted to outdo the Sarneb brothers, who had killed three but injured hundreds at the Boston Marathon with the same type of explosive. So that was nondescript. But when you try to contextualize that and say, this is terrible, there's no place. I hate that phrase. There's no place here for such bigotry. But they always say, we condemn radical Islamic violence and we condemn Islamophobia. Islamophobia. Islamophobia. Islamophobia. Can you hear me? I said Islamophobia. Islamophobia. I'm not. Please don't get mad. At me. Please, please, please. That's how they think. Remember George Casey? I keep getting back to the chief of staff of the Army 2012. So Major Hassan shoots 13 of his friends, his colleagues, fellow soldiers who were unarmed. I don't know how they were unarmed at a base. I guess you have to be unarmed at the cafeteria. But he's armed and nobody checks him. He's a psychiatrist and he shoots them and he wounds 30 others. And that when he's asked to comment, the chief of the army said that this, this is a tragedy. And it would be another tragedy if we were forced to alter the DEI program. No, that's what you should do. You should alter it so you don't have any mass murders like that again and so that we'll see what happens. But there are people. I mean, they come. I, I understand when a first generation group comes here, they're bewildered by the United States. So the Swedes went to Kingsburg, California and it was called the Swedish Colony. But they were not exclusive. Anybody could live there.
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Show Host
And they had Western values too.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, they had Western values. But say the Japanese came from a non western country and they went to Reedley, California and felt. And yet today they're the most integrated, intermarried, assimilated ethnic group. The Islamic groups feel that they can withstand that. And what their biggest fear is is the engine of western consumer culture and popular culture, from the Kardashians to McDonald's, will corrupt their kids and they will not be devout Muslims as practiced in the mother countries. We'll see what happens. But they feel they can be exempt from the melting pot.
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Show Host
You know, we have examples of the other side of that coin where political officials have gone out and praised the Islamic community and it seems to me unnecessarily. So let me give you the two examples. Miki Sherrell, who was the elected governor of New Jersey, who ran under being a moderate, has gone to a local mosque that has a cleric that has voiced support or is allegedly accused of having supported terrorists, you know, monetarily, in other words, groups, but has in fact called for a, quote, unquote, new intifada. And she has gone there. And this is what I mean by the other side of the coin that these politicians are saying things like this. You know how wonderful this mosque is. You're constantly under Islam. She means, quote, looking to do good works. And we need those things in our community because it's missing.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I have no problem with that.
- [26:12]
Show Host
But to me, let me give you the second example. And then I'll let you talk. In Salt Lake City, the mayor has gone to his local mosque, Eric Mendel hall, and he's appraised their values of faith and kindness. And Robert Spencer wrote an article on this. I believe it was in pajamas. Media. It could have. Could have been elsewhere. But he says he went after that to recount all the talking about kindness, killing of daughters who have not worn the hijab. So all the cases that we have. So it's hardly kindness. So why are these Democratic officials, politicians who obviously need a vote, praising these Islamic communities in that fashion? I mean, I could see them going out and saying, well, you know, what are the troubles for the. They could go out and do this, though. What are the problems in the. His. The Muslim community? What do you guys. Economic, you know, the jobs, et cetera. All the things that they might need. But why go the step further to say this is.
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Victor Davis Hanson
It's not just the Muslim boats in the left wing, mind. You deliberately look for the members of the 30% oppressed, victimized class, and then you react in a very magnanimous way, whether it's accurate or not. And then you reassure the Muslim community that they're special as victims. And then you expect the Asian, the Latino and the black community to say, look at this. She is saying this. If she had any integrity, which she doesn't, she would say, this is an integral, integral part of my campaign, and I'm running for governor. And one of the things I want to do is go to a mosque and say, you people are essential to our community and just see if it helps or hurts. What they don't understand is, and they can't understand is there is a difference between Christianity and Islam. I have been to Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya. I left part of my colon and appendix in Libya. I never got it back. And Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, I don't know. You can count just one or two nights flying in places like Kuwait, okay? And I knew that people were very friendly and hospitable. I did know something, though, that there were boundaries. If I went to Kuwait and I walked out that night and I insulted the Imperial family or the ruling, I would be in trouble publicly. If I said something about Islam or made fun of the Prophet, I would be in jail. When I went into. I think I changed planes in Saudi Arabia. It's been so long. Maybe it was Kuwait. They asked me if I had religious material. If I had a Bible, I'd be in bn in big trouble. So there's an asymmetry. A Muslim comes to The United States with his whole religious paraphernalia, and then he quotes chapter and verse, all his rights that he gets when he lands here. You can't say this to me. I'm basically quoting Ilian Omar, I can marry my brother. Don't dare suggest I did that. Rashid Tlaib. Don't dare say that. I'm an apologist for Hamah. They have all of these acquired instant rights, but they don't reciprocate. They never say to you, if you go to Somalia and you insult or you say something about the government or the religion, you're going to go to jail. Because they don't say anything. Because they agree with that. They agree with that. If you ask Rashida Tlaib, do you think the Palestinians in Gaza should have a right if they want to convert to Christianity, can they do that? She'd say no. If you say, do they have a right to insult Hamas? No. So we should take it for what it is. It's people who come from Islamic countries. And as soon as they arrive here, I'm not saying everybody, but they become experts on civil liberties. But they would never want to if they were in control. And if they come into control, they would never want to accord people the same rights that they demand for themselves. And we know that because when we go to their countries or they go to those countries, you can't do any of the things that they take for granted here. But more importantly, they defend those countries. They defend those countries. So Israel is a settler, colonial, genocidal country. Well, I've been to the west bank and I've been to Israel, and it's like, contrary to what Tucker says, the Arabs in Israel are treated much better than Arabs in the west bank who are Christians. Much better. There's a reason why they have fled Bethlehem. And it wasn't the idf, it was Islam and the Palestinian authorities. And when you go to Israel, it just functions on a very different premise than the countries around it. It. Anybody can see that. I only mention that because Tucker was quoted the other day as saying that he couldn't think of any Western cities that were as nice as Islamic cities. And I forgive myself and hope you give me forgiveness. If I quoted him wrong, I don't have the quote, but that's what I remember looking at the article. Okay, I wish you would go to old Cairo. I spent a long time there. I wish he would go. I spent eight days in Tripoli. We should go to Tripoli and then go to Copenhagen or Amsterdam or Stockholm or Paris and tell me that those countries are superior. They have better water, they have better sewage systems, they have better power grids. I don't believe they do. And I've been to Baghdad and I have been to Kuwait, and I just don't believe it. If you go to a Gulf monarchy that's crystal clean, it's because they have a huge hell out population that cleans everything. Why the elite? They're kind of like the Eloi and the Morlocks, you know what I mean? And H.D. wells, time machine. And if you go to the Emirates, any of those countries, they're ideal in Tucker's world, he bought a home in Gadara. Except you don't go on a corner with a sign and say long live Israel or you're in big trouble. If you go to Israel and you say long live Lebanon, you can say it. Nobody makes that distinction. It's hard to be a liberal society and then a functional society because you have greater tolerance for aberrations. It's easy to be an autocratic society and have the trains run on time like Mussolini did. But the west has been able most of the time to be both liberal in the sense of consensual governance and allows the oddball dissident.
- [33:34]
Show Host
I think Riyadh in Saudi Arabia is the city they always showcase as cause. It looks very modern.
- [33:39]
Victor Davis Hanson
It does. As long as you understand the local protocols. And they come over here and you know, a lot of Saudis came over here and blew up the World Trade center after partying at porno and gaming and gambling and drinking in Las Vegas.
- [33:57]
Show Host
Yeah, strange. So, Victor, let's go ahead and take a break and then come back and talk a little bit about the war in Iran. Stay with us and we'll be right back.
- [34:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
Since the founding of America 250 years ago, many things have changed, but some things never do. The commitment of husband and wife, the importance of passing along our values to our children. The faithfulness of God. Some wonder how we can ensure America will continue to thrive as long as we keep first things first. We've only just begun. America the Beautiful.
- [34:36]
Show Host
Welcome back. This is Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. So, Victor, there's as always, a lot going on with the war in Iran. We're all hoping that Trump can conclude it as soon as possible. But this week he has sent a 15 point plan to end the war. We're not really sure with to whom. And Trump has said he is having talks with somebody that he feels represents Iran, but we don't know once again who he is Having talks with. So I was wondering on those things, your thoughts.
- [35:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't know the guy's name. Gaifbaf? Is that his name? He's the speaker of the parliament. That's a contradiction of paradox. There is no free parliament. There's a parliament that okays what the theocracy says. But if were to say I have a motion that we should have a secular city or something, he would be dead. So they always use Western like the communists did in the 60s. And the Soviet Socialist Republics, the Republic of North Korea, you know what I mean? The Republic of East Germany. Why didn't they just say the communist slave state of Germany or the communist boot camp or something? But they always want to emulate us. Same thing with China. Every time I look at their big parades and I look at their uniforms, I said, is there anything that you can put on in a military show that is non Western? Can't you have uniforms that show traditional Chinese dress? Why do all your medals, why do your uniforms, why do your hats, why do they just mimic the West? Why does your missiles, why do your trucks, why does everything, does even your goose stepping goons, goose stepping goons, mimic Hitler, Mussolini?
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Show Host
Can I answer that for you?
- [36:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes.
- [36:25]
Show Host
It's because there's been a long tradition of recognizing that the west is superior militarily. And all of the people that have come to find out why that is, the ones that have been successful have realized that it's not just the weaponry and technology, but the culture that they need to bring in. So they bring in in addition, all of the garb, etc.
- [36:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
I understand that, that. But it's also a referendum on their own culture that nobody wants to point out. So this is interesting because we don't know what's going on because the only, again, the only venues are Al Jazeera and cnn. There's not a bit of difference between the two. And they're captives of their Iranian hosts, such as they are in their declining state. So they're only going to report good stuff from Iran. I must say, though, a little parentheses. If you read the Wall Street Journal today, yesterday, last week, three weeks. Every single, there's two things you notice. Every single story is a Debbie Downer story. Trump thinks it'll be two weeks, experts say three months. Strait of hormones, Hormuz likely closed for weeks. Missiles far more remaining than thought. Economy worries, recession in the air. That's all. And then when you look at the byline, I only say this because this is a Murdoch paper, so you would think that its reason to be was to be a better news agency than its competitor New York, which it is New York Times. But when you look at the people who write for it, it's always Politico, Washington Post, New York Times, Atlantic. In other words, they're bringing in reporters from the most hard left venues to write news stories. And then they balance it with a columnist which are about 60, 40 conservative. But when you read the columns, they bear no relation to a lot of the news stories. You know what I'm saying?
- [38:48]
Show Host
They're not reading their own news stories to inform their own columns then. Right?
- [38:53]
Victor Davis Hanson
I mean, it's diversity, but the columnists are more accurate than the news stories is what I'm saying. And, and, but so here we are. And Trump, as I said earlier with Jack, he's facing a lot of pressures. He's got the MAGA base now. He's got Joe Rogan, he's got Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly. I don't know how that happened, but she seems to be more critical of the war than supportive and has fallen out, apparently. I don't follow very carefully with Trump. And there's a constituency that's growing. And the Iranians said they prefer to talk to J.D. vance. That's taking a needle in our stomach and hitting us. Oh, you have a MAGA guy who's vice president didn't want to go in here, did he? Ha, ha, ha. And then you fired Joe Kelly who said that the Zionists were behind this, just like we say. So you've got that MAGA base, you've got the economy. And if you read the Wall Street Journal this week, recession will be here in about a month or two. World oil prices, gloom and doom. And then you have the midterms, and then you have the Europeans and the Japanese and the Chinese. We need the Strait of Hormuz. We need the Strait of Hormuz. We've got to get our oil. We've got to get our oil. And Trump says, okay, well, why? I handle getting rid of this vicious country of 93 million people. And it's a size double, almost one and a half Alaskas, and I've got to go in there with the Israelis. Could you just help a little bit and take each of your 30 NATO countries, just send one little ship, maybe Japan, two ships, Australia, two and a half, and just make a little convoy to protect your oil and I'll try to protect attacks on you just to show and can't do it. They say they're going to do it they haven't done it. So he's got all these pressures to stop. And then he's got his inner Circle, says, Mr. President, da, da, da. Your polls are going down, we're going to get wiped out. They're going to impeach you, they're going to go after everybody. All true. And then you have to say to yourself, are we mad? If you look at the Gulf War, if you look at Iraq, if you look at Afghanistan, we lost more people going into Panama under George H.W. bush. It's terrible. Thirteen people were killed, but we lost 20 or 30 going into Panama. Granada was a more screwed up operation. There hasn't been anything that's gone wrong other than maybe the public relations aspect of it. And by that I mean Trump has already said on March 1 and March 20 that he wanted to eliminate the nuclear program, eliminate the ballistic missile program, eliminate the ability of Iran to bully and fight and disrupt the Middle east and eliminate its terrorist proxies. Seems to me that he's getting pretty close to all of them. He never said, I'm going in there and going to change the regime. Everybody said he doesn't have a strategy, but he has a strategy. Now you can object to the strategy saying, Mr. President, you won't be there and Vance won't be there or Marco won't be there and they'll get in a Joe Biden or Obama and they'll wait like a pouncing cat and as soon as you're out and the left comes in, they'll get the Chinese and the Russians sweet oil deals and they'll rearm and this time they'll use it because they have missiles that can go anywhere now. So that that's a concern. But my point is that there was a great Brett Stevens who is a Never Trumper, although he said he was kind of defecting from the Never Trump ranks. A few months ago, he wrote a very insightful New York Times column. I mean, he had to have the requisite that Trump's a fool kind of things. But mostly he said, if you look at all of our past major engagements, on the amount of time we were at war, the amount of people we lost versus the amount of damage and success we inflicted. Afghanistan, first Gulf War, Iran, Panama, you look at all of them, it's amazing that the damage that we have done to Iran, the cost of it was not high. Even oil. If you look at the first Gulf War, that was only a 42 day war. 42 day war. Four days at a time when the United States was very vulnerable on oil imports. The price of oil in today's dollars was about $170. The price of oil has gone down about 100 or below. And so it's hard to see that we're going to be in a huge recession or that the war is going to go on and on and on. Because when the war started against Saddam, he had been attrited, but he had, we were told by the New York Times, I remember the Republican Guard, battle hardened from 10 years with Iran. Sophisticated science, T72 tanks, untested Abram tanks. This is going to be a bloodbath. Everybody said that. And yet Iran is so much more formidable than Iraq was. And yet, if you look at where the United states is in 21 days, 23 days, and where we were after 40 days, we've lost a fraction of what we lost. And we've done so much more damage to Iran than we had to Iraq. And it's so much more powerful. And so the only, as I said to Jack, the only criticism I have is public relations. I don't think they need to reiterate and keep it simple. We went into Iran because we have negotiated with this country for 47 years. We've had tough Republican negotiators, we have had Democrats with the Iran deal, the Obama Biden appeasement. Nothing works with them. That regime is bent on Middle east conquest and the primacy of the Persian Shia over everybody else in that Gulf and Middle east in general. You cannot reason with them. They killed and then name it off is what they have. When you say there was no apparent threat, that is like saying there no apparent threat. When they blown, oh, they blew up the barracks and killed 241. But why'd they do that? There was no apparent threat. They blew up our intimacy in Tanzania. There was no apparent threat. They blew up our embassy. No apparent threat. They took prisoners and tortured them from the CIA. There was no apparent threat. There's always apparent threat with them. Always. They tried to kill Trump, they tried to kill Bolton, they tried to kill Pompeii, they tried to kill Brian Hook, but there was no apparent threat. I don't understand that. It's so bizarre. And so what I'm getting is that if you use history as the barometer, we're in much better shape. All that, all the administration has to do is say four goals. No nukes, no ballistic missiles, no infiltration and trying to bully the Arab and Israel neighbors and no subsidies to terrorist surrogates. And do that and live in peace. And sorry you wouldn't do that when you negotiated. So now you've got rubble and we're not going to give a red cent to rebuild you. Good luck and then say to the Iranian people, you came out and they slaughtered you. And that's one of the reasons we went in at that time because we thought that you might be slaughtered to extinction and we did enough damage where you weren't. And we welcome you to, you know, now is the time. We've taken out the leadership, we've taken out the command and control, we've taken out a lot of their wherewithal and we will probably arm you if you want, but we're not going to go in there and rebuild your country. That's your business. And if he would say that, I think he could wrap it up pretty quickly.
- [47:38]
Show Host
All right, Victor, let's welcome back a sponsor, Patriot Mobile. Patriot Mobile. This year marks a critical moment for our country. As the opposition grows more aggressive and unapologetic. The fight now reaches into the everyday decisions we make. Patriot Mobile has been standing on the front lines of fighting for freedom for more than 12 years. They don't just deliver top tier wireless service. They are activists like this show who truly care about our country. Patriot Mobile offers prioritized premium access on all three major US networks, giving you the same or better coverage than the main carrier. That means fast speeds and dependable nationwide coverage backed by 100% US based customer support. They also offer unlimited data plans, mobile hotspots, international roaming and more. With simple seamless activation, you can switch in minutes, keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade. And here's the difference. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you'll be part of a powerful stream of giving that directly funds the Christian conservative movement. Take a stand today. Go to patriotmobile.com VDH or call 972-patriot. That's P A T R I O T 972-patriot and use promo code VDH for a free month of service. Don't wait, that's patriotmobile.com VDH or call 972 Patriot and use the promo code VDH. And we'd like to thank Patriot Mobile for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hanson show.
- [49:27]
Victor Davis Hanson
Show.
- [49:28]
Show Host
Oh, sorry, the Victor Davis Hansen in his own words show.
- [49:32]
Victor Davis Hanson
We have a competitor, my evil twin. It's called the Victor Davis Hanson show. And there's over, I don't know, 900 shows that are in stock that appear. I get this question all the time.
- [49:45]
Show Host
I know. And there's a whole bunch of imitators out There which we are trying to take care of.
- [49:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
AI imitators, we're trying to put our fingers in the dike.
- [49:53]
Show Host
Yes. So Victor, I have a few more questions on Iran and I know that part of it you kind of brushed aside, but do you think that you could answer yes or no? Do you think that Trump will be sending amphibious forces to take over Kharg Island?
- [50:11]
Victor Davis Hanson
That depends on these negotiations. So I think when he talks about a 15 point plan, that could be some renegade general that called him up or maybe a secular, maybe this parliamentarian and says he speaks in the vacuum for all of Iran and he has feelers out with the opposition and he wants to have a Venezuelan solution. Could it could happen. Could not happen. Depends on how and how much disarray are the theocrats versus the military that the regular military, not the Republic, the Revolutionary Guard, the regular military hasn't been paid probably. So if he dealing with elements that are subversive to the theocracy, then there won't be an invasion, there'll be a deal. I would give that about a 30% chance. Then he has to say that he's not going to put boots on the ground on the interior mainland. So he's bringing in probably altogether 5 or 6,000. If he's bringing in the 82nd Airborne, I don't think he's going to bring in the whole 82nd. But that's, you know, a division could be 16,000 men. So that is a one of two operations to take Karga island, which is a very big island. And it would be as almost somebody said, we're going to invade your island in about six weeks and you can imagine what that means. They've booby trapped that island. There's IEDs everywhere on it. There's ambushes set up, there's subterranean tunnels. It's like Gaza. There's drones everywhere. It's going to be a mess to go in there. If you went in and occupied it, then Iran would have no income and you would squeeze that regime into nothing. So that's a very enticing option. If they could keep the casualties to a minimum. But that's going to be very hard because you can't bomb it because of all the refineries and storage and facilities that you want to keep. You want to sell oil to keep the world price moderate but under your auspices like you did in Venezuela. So the purpose would be to go in there, occupy the island, get some Iranian technicians or European or American to go in there and then sell the oil to the non Chinese customer and have them go out the Strait of Hormuz and take the money and bank it in a trust fund and say to the opposition, this is all the billions that you're going to have at your disposal when you get rid of these thieves. That's the one use. The other use is that Iran says that they can close the Strait of Hormuz and they own the Strait of Hormuz even though it's international waters because you have to go close to the coast. And they've had this fleet of hundreds. They're like power boats, you know, I mean they look like a super outboard, you know, like a 30 foot World War II PT boat but hyped up. And they have on it machine guns, torpedo and mines and they're like fleas and they go all around. And when we say we've sunk 130 warships, I don't know if we count them as warships, but they've got hundreds of them. And so their idea is that we can. At night, I think they've shot 30 or 40 missiles from the shore at the Gerald Ford port. They've knocked everyone down. That's pretty amazing. And that's not going to last if you keep doing that and swarming that. But so what I'm getting at is they probably put mines in the strait and I don't know why we don't have our minesweepers there. I think they're requested now and they're on their way. But we should have, from the first moment we got there, we should have had two or three if we had a navy. Our navy's been vastly reduced under Obama and Biden. Biden. But my point is that you've got to clear the mines, you've got to destroy all of these cartel like speedboats and you've got to, if you've got to put some kind of troops on the shorelines to get all these missile silos and that's why they put them there. They have dug in fortified reinforced concrete missile silos that are pointed at any ship that go there to close it down. So you've got to occupy that or bomb it. And they tried to bomb it and apparently they don't know where they all are. And so that's a MIG task. And then you've got to get the Europeans and the Japanese and our allies to follow American lead and go through there. It's been done before. I think Jim Mattis, who was CENTCOM commander, if I'm mistaken, I read that he organized an armada before The Obama administration fired him partly for that. It was a wise thing to do. But he said when Iran earlier said that the straight over move was theirs, he just organized a armada of allies to go through and turn around, go back as I remember, and into the Persian Gulf. And as I remember they had a tail about 500 miles. Everybody wanted to get in on it. So we'll see.
- [55:34]
Show Host
Yeah, well, you know, I, they've got
- [55:37]
Victor Davis Hanson
to do something quick because if they don't, these Houthis are going to get active and say, ah, they're going with their pipeline, they're using the Red Sea to get in there and get North African oil or they're going in to get the Saudi oil and the pipeline and they'll start doing what they do and then you'll have another headache.
- [55:57]
Show Host
I was wondering, since you've sort of alluded to this, that, that what you thought about, you know, we keep hearing in the news that they've neutered or emasculated their air force, their ground forces, their navy, etc. Which is all probably true, but we still see missiles coming from Iran day in and day out. Of course, Israel is the one that's suffering most from this. You see them hit there and I was wondering, seems sort of strange. I mean the administration shouldn't be high fiving each other until they really do have.
- [56:41]
Victor Davis Hanson
I use the metaphor similarly with Jack, when I was growing up thinning plums. You never look at the amount of plums on the ground that are no problem anymore. You look at the number, they're still on the tree. And it's very easy to fool yourself that you've thinned enough of the, the crop off by looking at it. So it's very, it's very enticing to count up all the launchers and all the missiles that you've destroyed and then say to yourself, well, this was our pre war guess of how many they had. So this represents the percentage. But then unknowingly you give the impression to the world and your own constituencies that at the rate that you're going say they were doing this the first 10 days, after 10 days they said they destroyed 90. So then you just calibrate, well, in 10 days, if you destroyed 90 in 24 hours, it'll be the last 10%. But what that didn't account for was the enemy having a say. And you know what they did? They took their long range ballistic missiles that they had never disclosed the proper range that went to Diego Garcia and they're scattered all over in hardened silos. And then they had much more drones and underground bunkers, and they were scattered with a kind of a mosaic chain of command, that each tessera had its independent autonomy. So they said, given what we've seen the west do and the Israelis do, they will probably kill our top commanders like they did in the summer. But when they do that, we want all you local people that have under your jurisdiction and control 10 missiles here, 15 there. You're welcome to do whatever you want with them. And so they've saved their worst and most lethal for last, the cluster thing. So when you hit these things, the missile does what it was going to do anyway. It releases all of these bomblets, and they can be very deadly. That said that there's. There's not that many now. There's only two or three, four, seven a day coming in. They're just more lethal and they're more depressing because you had expectations they wouldn't be any. So how do you square that circle? If I were the. And I'm not, of course, then I. And I think the spokespeople are doing very good. But I would just say we have an approximation that we probably got nine in. But I want to warn everybody, they have had years, years to anticipate this. So there is scattered all around missiles and hardened silos in apartment buildings in the manner of Hezbollah, in the manner of Hamas, underground. It's going to take us a long time to find every single one, but we're working on it. That's what they need to say. In the first Gulf war, they sent 40 missiles into Israel. I think they did. And they sent a lot out. American troops we weren't able to find. They had those people in because they were on trucks in the desert and we had the Scud patrol. These were, you know, up armed Bradley vehicles, and they were just driving all night trying to find them. Every as soon as they launched one, a satellite gave the gps. Then it was rudimentary in those days, and they would try to find. And we didn't do very good. Good. So they're doing much better. But because. Because the media hates Trump, the left hates Trump, the Europeans hate Trump. They give him no margin of error. So three weeks, you're not done yet. It's a failure. You haven't got 100% of the missiles yet. It's a failure. You lost 13 soldiers. It's a bloodbath. You know, you lost a C130. It's a catastrophe. That's how they look at everything. And that then you've got all these people say, I just wanted the economy. I just want cheap gas. I like Trump, but I just want it to go away. I just want to get back. And he had all these great ideas, let's get back on track. And he's trying to say, well, we could get back on track, but these guys were going to get a bomb and cause havoc to us in the future. And if you don't believe me, go back and listen to what Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden said, said they swore they wouldn't get a bomb, and then they made the conditions by which they'd eventually get the bomb. If Joe Biden had come in and just left the maximum pressure on, they were losing $100 billion a year in oil revenues. And the Houthis were terrorist organizations. They were debanked, they were defanged. Nobody was sending missiles at us from bases. Anytime they tried to send missiles at an American installation in Syria or Iraq, we bombed them. We bombed, we destroyed ice. That was all lost. I can't believe that Jake Sullivan, the former National Security Advisor to Joe Biden, is actually criticizing. He's out there saying the Trump team didn't understand. Jake, you were the one that told us, what, 10 days before October 7th? Well, you know, we've been pretty successful in the Middle East. That Middle east portfolio, or mine, is one of the quietest. It was almost like you were an anti Nostradamus. So whatever you predicted would be the opposite would take place. Because the whole Middle east blew up on your watch and because of the appeasement, and Iran was at the center of it. And you're trying to tell us that, you know, you're an Iranian expert, you guys oversaw the greatest military catastrophe in the last 50 years with that skedaddle from Kabul. So you have to put everything in historical perspective.
- [62:42]
Show Host
Yeah. You know, you mentioned Obama and that they already understood that Iran was, you know, you've either got to tolerate them having nuclear weapons or you got to do something about it. But there was a bird's eye view into the Obama administration, and I can't remember what article this came from, but
- [63:01]
Victor Davis Hanson
that one about Dennis Blair.
- [63:02]
Show Host
Yes. Where he said, I went into a meeting and we were addressing Iran, and all I said was, you know, here's the quote from, are you going to tolerate Iran having a NUC weapon or not? And then after that meeting, he got pulled aside by Obama, and Obama said, don't ever put me on the spot like that again.
- [63:21]
Victor Davis Hanson
We never really had a role after that.
- [63:23]
Show Host
Yeah. And that shows you what, you know what the Obama administration, maybe they knew it, but they certainly didn't want to have to confirm.
- [63:30]
Victor Davis Hanson
They didn't want them to have a bomb. Why else did they have the Iran deal? It was a trajectory to a bomb. Why did they send $400 million on a pallet at night? And Obama was a very strange person because under that thin veneer of compassion, humility, he was one of the most self centered or presidents we've ever had. So when he said you're basically you're done and the guy was done, it's not like he didn't say stupid things. He went to South Korea and Seoul in 2012 and said to Medevid, tell Vladimir that this is my last election. If you'll give me space, I will be flexible on missile defense. This involves Iran, meaning you guys are all worried about Iranian missiles. And I have started a missile program to knock them down in Poland and I knocked them down with the Czech Republic and we can cover the eastern flank of NATO. The Russians object to this because they feel that in a nuclear standoff it might be used against them. And I'm willing to just sacrifice it all for my own personal selfish future because I'm in an election and the last thing I need is an invasion of Ukraine or something like what happened to Bush in 2008 when they went into Osatia and embarrassed him. So let's make a deal at the expense of my country. And that's what they did. And sure enough, they lived up to it. Obama, Obama did dismantle those two projects which would be very handy now to protect Ukraine and Europe. And he did. The Russians did. They gave him space. And they did not invade Ukraine in 12 or 13. They did do it in 14. They said, well, the deal's done now. Now we're going to go into Crimea and the Donbass and embarrass you and show you how weak you are. But you did get elected, which we want. So it was a great deal for us. Barak, we knew you were weak, you were an appeaser, you wouldn't do anything. So we wanted to help you out so we didn't embarrass you. And you helped us out by dismantling this supposedly anti Iranian missile defense, which we didn't want anyway. So it was a win win for us and a lose lose for you. And that's very funny because just four years later, these same people who watched that were saying to us, the public, Russian collusion, Russian collusion Russian collusion, Russian collusion, Donald Trump, and it was all a lie. But there was Russian collusion. Barack Obama colluded with the Russians for his own personal political benefit at the expense of the security of his country. And they said nothing. And remember what Ben Rhodes said when he was bragging in that interview? I think it was with the New York magazine or Atlantic, I can't remember which. And he said we created an echo chamber and these young kids, they know nothing. So we just gave them the narrative and they bounced it right back to the public. And the narrative was the Iran deal was wonderful. Wonderful. That's what he said.
- [66:50]
Show Host
Yeah. All right, Victor, so let's go ahead and take a break and then come back for our last segment and talk a little bit about that California gubernatorial race and maybe Gavin Newsom if we have some time. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
- [67:04]
Bradley Devlin
If you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen, you might enjoy the Daily Signals flagship show, the Tony Kenneth Cast the same common sense perspectives you love, weekdays at 7pm Eastern. And and unlike some of the other evening shows, we work up until showtime to bring you the latest breaking news, analysis and good old American sarcasm. Thom Tillis I'm pretty sure might have been useful at one time as a doorstop. Find the Tony Kenneth cast on YouTube, X radio TV or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [67:34]
Show Host
Welcome back. Victor Davis Hanson in his own words here. So Victor, the the California gubernatorial race is taking a strange turn already. USC was supposed to have a debate but then they backed down and canceled the debate because there were not enough non white non male candidates or female candidates. So I was wondering your thoughts on that very strange backdown.
- [68:04]
Victor Davis Hanson
It's so ironic. It's like karma. They came up with the idea when they have 66% of the state are Democrats. They came up with the idea of these jungle primaries so that there would be no Republican candidates at all. In other words, the two top Democrats would get more than the Republican. And so never in their right mind did they think Sheriff Bianco and Steve Hilton would be the two leading candidates. And I think they may be the two leading candidates who win the primary. And I do think then they will have a right in candidate and they'll get all united and they may win, but I hope not. But so they have all these candidates and they have in the Democratic Party Kathleen Porter and Chris Fong Fong Stalwell. Right. So Swalwell and Porter have the highest and the rules were that the four or five people who participated have to have the highest Polling by a nonpartisan poll. Everybody agreed on it. Then the other four candidates said essentially were Hispanic, were black, and were Asian. This is systemic racism. Now, this has nothing to do with the Republicans. They used usc. They wanted a university platform. So then they went to USC and said, you're racist. Racist. Racist. Racist. Racist is you're having a. We're a multiracial state where whites are 36% of the population and their Neanderthal view. They don't believe that anybody who is white will vote for a minority or anybody who's minority will vote for a white over another minority. Ask Kamala Harris how that worked out. So anyway, at the last moment, USC, being an academic institution with academics running it caved. And they said, oh, don't call me racist, please don't call me RA. You can call me a child molester, a thief, a rogue, a rape, anything. So they canceled it. And now, see, Hilton and Bianco are saying, see, they can't build a dam, they can't build a reservoir, they can't rebuild the Palisades. They can't build high speed radar. They can't even hold a debate. Debate. They're so incompetent. They're just like a bunch of little kids. They feud, feud and call each other names. We had nothing to do with this. We agreed to go to a hostile territory called a university, and just two Republicans go in there and actually get in that debate. And they had two Democrats and it was going to be, how many you want up there? How'd that work in the Democratic primary of 2020 when you had 16 candidates on the stage, everybody gets it. 30 seconds. So. So it was really an embarrassment. And I guess what the Spokesman Village Rossa and the rest of them were saying is, we don't believe in democracy, we believe in racial politics, and we want a quota. And so even though we're not very. It's also a commentary on the state because the state is 66% non white. And the 66% non white voted for the top four people and two in each party were white, which is odd, but it's encouraging that people are not voting for their. For their tribal. On their tribal affinities. It reminds me, it's so California. When I joined Cal State Fresno, I hadn't been farming. I went up there and the union rep came and knocked on my door. And she said, you're now permanent after two years. And she said, you're a freeloader. I said, I'm a freeloader. I said, yes, you're given union protection and union wages because of our collective bargaining for your behalf. But only 35% of the faculty is paying dues so you're a freeloader. I said I've never freeloaded off anybody. And they said well we're not a political union, we're an old fashioned union and we're here to help you from. So I said you really think I'm a freeloader? So go ahead and take my. It was like a thousand a year or something. Well they got that and then they said we have no money. You can come to our Friday pizza part or pizza thing. And they didn't. They were little ragtag union. 30% of of the 22,000 faculty members in the 23 campus are 22. And then they got Grave Davis to sign something that said whether you're in the union or not, it doesn't matter, we're going to take your union dues. And so I saw that union organizer and I said, I left the union said d we don't care. We do not care. And she said something that was very funny off the record. It's kind of the fewer members is better because we can control things. What she was saying is we don't want a bunch of people in the union when we get we just want your money. And then I noticed that they didn't have fruit punch and pizza. They had extravagant dinners and they went out so they had all this money. And the funny thing was sure enough they had union reps elected. So on some campuses they've elected white people. And the union came in and said we're overturning that vote until you get this amount of blacks, Hispanic, D.A. d.A. Asian. And they did. Exactly. That's imprinted in their DNA. The Democrats they do not believe it's kind of like the old Yugoslavia that every, you know, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, you name it massive they all get votes and their racial spoil system. So I think for the first time there's a 50, 50 chance that a Republican could become governor. I don't know what he would do with that insane legislature. He wouldn't get anything passed but he could at least use the money allotted as executive to build another lane on the 99 or something or help rebuild Palisades aids rather than more bills on illegal 10 billion more for homeless. They get 6 more hotels and then spend 150 million to renovate them and then put homeless people in without training or guidance and then have them trash it or you know, $500 million for illegal aliens for Health care, when nobody asks what their legal status is or reparations in a state that never had slavery and 3% African American, you're going to give thousands of dollars to people six generations away from slavery. That's the mindset. And by the way, finally, Gavin Newsom corrected himself today. He said, he says everything. But he said, he was quoting Tom Friedman. He said that the. And I went back and looked. It wasn't quite like what he said. He said Tom Freeman said they were an apartheid state, mentioning Israel. We mentioned that on one of our podcasts and we said, oh yeah, it's our apartheid. That means the Arabs can't vote and they have second class. Said, no, they don't. If you're a Jew, you do in an Arab country or if you're a Christian, you are a second class citizen. You have your special religious enclave, you can't go go out. But anyway, he said that Israel was apartheid. And then he got so much criticism from Democratic donors who were Jewish that he went back on and he did his, his twitch. Yeah, I was quoting Tom Free Man. It's like he's a rapper and he just does this. And I, I love, I'm a big supporter of Israel.
- [76:27]
Show Host
He's, he's, He's, I, he's 960 on the SAT. Victor.
- [76:35]
Victor Davis Hanson
960. It was very funny because he said that to his African American host and then he pointed to the audience and said, I'm like you. And I would bet you that a lot more people in the audience had higher SAT scores than he did. And number one. What he was so racist because he's basically saying, I'm kind of an exception to white people, but I'm like, like typical black person. And you know, he is that way. All those left wing people who grew up very wealthy and secluded and segregation. Segregated. And then they hang out with wealthy white people, they don't feel comfortable with minorities. So they make this edifice to square the circles of their discomfort. And so they act like they're very liberal and they're going to do all this, but every once in a while there's a crack in that edifice and you see the inner side and they're racist. And that's why they're very liberal in a way. They want to say, I'm very liberal. I'm so liberal, I don't have to live near. And you can see it. Joe Biden, Barack Obama is the first black man who's clean and articulate. Barack, going to put you all on change. You people, hey, boy, boy, remember that? He's called one of his things. Let me tell you the corn pox. I took a 6ft of chain and confronted Corn Pop. And he had just a whole litany of. Remember that? When that really nice journalist was trying to find, trying to interpret his Babel and he said, hey junkie, remember that? Yeah. And then Harry Reid said the same thing about Obama. And then every once in a while he'd have to remind Biden not to use the word Negro. Satchel Paid was one of my favorite negro pictures. He did that. And yet he acted very literally liberal. And remember Nancy Pelosi complaining about the border? Who's going to pick all of our food? Who's going to pick all our food? You know, I don't, I mean, I live in a community where the city council, the police, the school, they're all run by competent Mexican Americans. They're not. They're two generations away from first generation agricultural labor. But it's so typical of the left wing elite, wealthy, privileged white class that they can't repress their racism. And I don't know why a lot of minorities put up with it because they know that they talk down to them.
- [79:08]
Show Host
Yes, it's condescending, but even from Obama, it was condescending to blacks. So the liberal blacks that are part of that world are just about a
- [79:20]
Victor Davis Hanson
group of really skilled organizers for Harris. Don't be voting against a black woman. Don't fall for that. You'll fall for that. Don't do that. I mean, you idiots, you don't have my sophisticated political knowledge and you might be tricked by Donald Trump and not vote for somebody that looks like you. That's what he was saying to him. He did that a lot back actually. He said that three or four times.
- [79:45]
Show Host
Yeah, he sure did.
- [79:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
Always like thought, you know, it's like he was talking to Michelle once in maybe Colorama mansion or maybe they were looking at the sea from the rising sea that was going to engulf them at Martha's Vineyard or the tidal wave from global warming that was going to wipe out their huge mansion on the shore of Hawaii. And they said, you know, people are forgetting us, Michelle. Get the Gulf Stream, get the Gulf Stream. We're going to fly in there somewhere and lecture to some young black people about they don't know what's good for. That's how they operated.
- [80:18]
Show Host
Well, Victor, we're at the end of the show and we have comments that were sent in to you. And here is a card and it's Very beautiful. And let everybody see it. And they say in the card, they say, sorry to hear your prayer. And this one says, we have learned so much from you since we first heard you on the Greg Garrison Show. I remember Greg. Indianapolis, many years ago.
- [80:46]
Victor Davis Hanson
Wonderful person from India. I actually went to Indianapolis and had a good afternoon with Greg.
- [80:50]
Show Host
Yeah.
- [80:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
On the way to Libya.
- [80:53]
Show Host
Oh, no. To get your operation for your appendix.
- [80:57]
Victor Davis Hanson
I apologized to him. I said I have a bad tummy ache and I didn't know it was a ruptured appendix.
- [81:02]
Show Host
All right. And then the letter continues. We also went on two of your wonderful historic trips to Italy and the south of France. So that was very nice. That's from Susan and Mac Thomas.
- [81:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
The cards are so nice and people write so well and so well meaning. And as I said, I've had over probably at Stanford and here a thousand of them. I try to read them all and they're very wonderful.
- [81:29]
Show Host
Yeah. And they do things. They're very.
- [81:32]
Victor Davis Hanson
I shouldn't say I try. I've read every single one.
- [81:35]
Show Host
Yeah. This is a card that was sent there. Somebody did drawing of a flower and put it in that old. I don't know what they call that art. But putting plants into, you know, smash them up, dry them and put them in. Anyway, so somebody sent that with a nice prayer from the Book of Common Prayers on it. And then the last one is a comment by Jennifer Dallas. I am so happy to see you are feeling well enough to make regular recordings again. You had said your wife had you on a schedule for returning to a work. I think she has done a great job with that. Please thank Mrs. Hansen for all her hard work in helping you return to work. I know. I look forward to listening to your insights and knowledge. I know how hard it is to see your husband in pain and struggling after surgery. It makes even harder. It makes it even harder to push them to do things that cause discomfort. Even though you will. It will help your recovery. Please know my family's prayers are with you and Mrs. Hansen. Thank you, Jen. Deborah Dallas.
- [82:42]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes. It's very nice.
- [82:44]
Show Host
P S. I love hearing your family stories and hope you continue to share them. I would love to hear more stories about your grandfather.
- [82:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
So I have two great grandfathers, a Swedish, one completely Swedish and the other completely Welsh. Very different but very wonderful people. You know, I went to three doctors yesterday. Yeah. Two days ago. And I was very frustrated because I don't have the energy and I think I should be, you know, and they were very good. And they said, what planet do you live on. They said the lower right lobectomy, forget the cancer. The lower right lobectomy is a major operation. And you had a four hour operation. That would be three to four months. You're only on week 11. And then they had to add, and then you had a second almost four hour operation 30 minutes later. And you, you had three liters of blood, five transfusions. That can cause allergies, you've got anemia, you had afib, you had the trauma of taking all the sutures out and then starting all over again and finding the bleed in time. So why would you. Are you a lunatic? But I want to get back and it's sort of of not the real problem. The real problem I have right now is my heart energy and that. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is the cancer recurrence because you can't do anything for it. So you just sit here because chemo won't work and immunotherapy, and you just sit here and think, every 90 days I get a blood test at CT. And then do you have a little IED crawling around in you or not exactly.
- [84:28]
Show Host
You worry for another 90 days before you start.
- [84:30]
Victor Davis Hanson
So I said to the guy, I'm really tired. Tired. Do you think it's cancer? And he laughed at me. And he said, you just had a biopsy 60 days ago that you have no cancer cell. The first one was good. So you've had all these other things. And then I said, well, I get all these heart spikes. And he was very funny. He said, I can get rid of that Apple watch. Just go by your instinct. So I've been doing that kind of by my instinct.
- [84:55]
Show Host
Very good. That's probably some good advice. Yeah, I think it is stuck to technology that sometimes fails.
- [85:01]
Victor Davis Hanson
I think I said, I won't mention any names. I said, well, you know, I get out up a chair, I've never had this before. It's 55 beats and goes zoom 100. And he said, well, 105, 110. As long as it just lasts a little bit and it quits. You know, it's not POTS or what they call pots, it's just. And I said, well, I'll be walking at 73, 74. And I'm really getting confident. I'm a half a mile and all of a sudden it goes ninety, a hundred. Your heart's tired, it's recovering, it's had some trauma, give it a break. But so what if it goes 95? When you were well, what did you get up to your Targeted heart rate. 120, 130. You got a lot of room. Just relax. Get rid of that watch. Don't look at your heart rate. Go by your feelings. If you're sweating and dizzy, stop. If you're not, keep going. That was tough love. I liked it.
- [85:54]
Show Host
It is. But it's also true that the rise in your heart rate is not the. But the recovery once you sit down.
- [86:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
I have really good.
- [86:04]
Show Host
All the way down.
- [86:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
That's why he said. He said, if you get. I had to lay. I do these little. They had these tests where you lay flat, you almost go to sleep and your heart rate goes down like 55, 53. And then he said, get up. So you jump up like you're Superman. And then they see what your heart rate goes up to. And mine went to like, I don't know, 95 or something. And if it's more than 20 beats, it's worse. Worrisome because that's called post or that orthostatic tachycardia. But then they see what your recovery rate is. So then you sit down and in one minute it was back to 60. So they said, don't worry about it because it didn't last for more than a minute. So that means your heart's recovering. So I'm hoping I'll be some of those, that small group when you get really bad afib. I had really bad for a month. That the fact that you haven't had it subsequently means that you have and you didn't have it before surgery, that it was trauma related or blood loss related, that you might not have it again then you know. Another thing I've met is all these people who say, I have afib. I said, but there's two types. Episodic, really traumatic, and then just you never know. You had it and they live with it. It's no big deal.
- [87:22]
Show Host
Well, Victor, we're at the end of the show.
- [87:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
It is a big deal. I shouldn't say that, but they live with it.
- [87:27]
Show Host
Yeah. And I would like to remind everybody Victor is going to be back for the Saturday show. So following this Friday news roundup, we'll have our regular Saturday show this week. So that'll be a good thing. You are listening to Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words. It's a subsidiary of the Daily Signal. So go out and check out the Daily Signal. Lots of good stories there and there are publications and you can find our show link there as well. Thank you, Victor, for all your wisdom and thanks to the audience. For joining and choosing to join us on this Friday.
- [88:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you everybody for listening and watching. And we'll be back, I hope, at least for a while with four shows. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website@victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.