B (3:03)

Well, I'm going to ask you some questions about the book, this book itself. But the first general question before I ask the five and I've written them down, folks appreciate the non mumbling. Peter, before I get to those questions, just give our listeners and viewers an understanding of what prompted you to write this book. Was there a specific trove of information you came across that tripped a wire for you or have you been noting and assembling these threads? I think they're more like cables or ropes. They're so thick of troubling information. Over the years and finally found the time to tell the story of this particular strategic coordinated effort to undermine America through immigration.

A (3:42)

Well, it's a good question, Jack. You know, I think there were a couple of trigger points. I've started thinking about this book in early 2024 presidential election coming up. Remember we all saw the videos of people pouring across the border. Trump was making it a campaign issue. And of course a lot has been written on immigration. But I felt like we were kind of miss the larger point of it. There was the, you know, the great replacement theory was out there which didn't seem to me like it actually explained what was going on. It's kind of this, this Marxist construct that capitalists, capitalism is the problem. I don't, I don't think that was quite right. And I ran across across a couple of interesting factoids that led me to think there's something more here that we're missing. The first one was I was curious as to what in Mexico they thought and were saying about immigration. And I ran across you know, really kind of stunning quotes from top Mexican officials saying that this was actually something that was good, that mass migration out of their own country to the United States was good because it was an opportunity to extend Mexico's sovereignty into the United States. Sometimes they call it reconquista and they're quite explicit about it. And I thought that's kind of weird. I mean they, they don't really believe that. And then I poked a little bit more and saw that they actually had, had built infrastructure in the United States that, that Literally there are Mexican senators and Mexican members of their Chamber of Deputies or Congress that live in the United States. Their job is to represent Mexicans living in our borders in the Mexican legislature, which struck me as utterly bizarre and an intrusion into our sovereignty. So that got me the larger scope of what was going on here in terms of motivation. The other factoid was China's birth tourism industry and the scale of it. You know, this, this is related to the idea that the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship, that if you are born here, you're automatically granted citizenship. And yet China had, has this industrial scale program whereby members of the Chinese elite will fly their pregnant wives to the United States. They will give birth, and as soon as the infant is ready to fly, you know, a week or so after birth, they will fly back to China. The child will be a US citizen, but they'll be raised in the People's Republic of China, and when they turn 18, they're going to vote. Those two factoids led me to wonder, is there something larger at work here? And I'll say, before the book came out, I had the opportunity to sit with the President, with Marco Rubio and with Scott Besant in the Oval Office for about 55 minutes sharing these findings. We also went to Capitol Hill, met with people there and everybody was kind of equally shocked by these things that I had been shocked by. So it was for me kind of confirmation that, that yeah, there's something that we've been missing.

B (6:48)

So those weren't factoids, those were facts. So. Well, Peter, here's the first of the five pointed questions. There's a Bernie Sanders launched nonprofit named Progressive international. Didn't exist 10 years ago, but certainly exists today. Too much to our great concern, I believe it's populated not by bleeding heart liberals, but by bad ideological actors, particularly in Central and South America, such as the former leftist president of Ecuador, Rafael Carrera. Tell us, Peter, about Progressive International, its quick rise, its hemispheric web of drug involvement and crime and what, what it does to try to destabilize the United States of America.

A (7:36)

Yeah. So Progressive International was an idea that Bernie Sanders came up with in 2018. That's when it was launched. And the idea, in his words, was to create an organization that would bring under one tent progressives in North America, primarily the United States and Latin America, so they could work jointly. It would kind of an international, so to speak, for progressives in the region. His former foreign policy advisor was put in charge of it. They brought in members of the Latin American left, including you Know, the gentleman you mentioned and the current president of Columbia, for example, Petro and others. And it got involved with American politics. You had people like aoc, Congressman Craig Cesar, members of the Senate, Progressive senators that started participating in the, in the program. Well, in and of itself that's not, I guess, entirely unusual, right, that, you know, political movements try to create international. The problem is when you start to look at who is on the council of leaders for this organization, roughly 30% of them, I mean, clear cut, have ties to drug cartels. You know, they're politicians or they're individuals who have long records of known ties to the drug cartels. And then I started looking at, well, what is Progressive International focus focused on? What, what are their priorities? Because there are a lot of things that, you know, progressives from North America and South America could be working on. And they started working on two really important issues in their mind. The first one was open borders, right? We want a borderless world. There should be no wall. There should be nothing on the US Mexican border. And number two was a call for the ending of any military operations by the United States or allied governments against the drug cartels in Latin America. Those were the two priorities, which almost immediately you realize those are too high priorities for the drug cartels themselves. They like open borders. It's, it's sort of well established in law enforcement circles that during the Biden years, the drug cartels made more money smuggling people than they did smuggling drugs. Uh, and the second one is probably self explanatory. They don't want military units coming after them. Uh, so to me, this represents sort of an intrusion of the drug cartel cartels into American politics directly. And the problem is, is they have a pretty strong foothold because, you know, people like AOC and Congress have actually introduced resolutions calling for the end of military operations against drug cartels and all sorts of other initiatives. So this to me is related to the immigration as a weapon because you've got various bad actors, including the drug cartels, that benefit enormously from mass migration. They benefit financially and they also benefit politically. And I think Progressive International is an illustration of that problem.

B (10:38)

Yeah, the cartels. By the way, Peter, the headlines today, and we're recording again on 12th February, this closing of the airport in El Paso has to do with cartel drones. I mean, these, it sounds like we should go to war with these literal war with these bad actors. Before I ask you some more questions though, I have to. We have to pay the bills. So to our listeners and our viewers, if you've studied enough history, you start to see a pattern. Nations don't lose their way overnight. They drift through debt 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 and more distortion. But there's historical truth. Every society that pushed its currency beyond discipline eventually paid a price. The wise never waited for collapse. Hope you're wise, folks. They prepared for the correction. And 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 a speculation, but as insulation. Our reputation here at Victor Davis Hanson, in its own words, matters. Which is why we've partnered with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability and an A rating from 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 and viewers 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 844-7991-9184-4790-9191 or visit protectwithvictor.com One more time folks. One more time. That's 844-7909-1918-4479-0911 or visit protectwithvictor.Com History rewards those who take the long view. And we thank the good people from Allegiance for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. A quick side question. Peter, tell us about the quickly if you don't mind. Where should people you have a website, peterschweitzer.com is that correct?

A (13:13)

Peterschweitzer.com and then my podcast is thedrildown.com and you can also find me on Twitter x Peterschweitzer.

B (13:23)

Okay. And tell us about Government Accountability Institute, which you are the president of.

A (13:29)

Yeah, this is a 501C3. We've been around for about 15 years and we work at exposing cronyism and corruption. We started with really exposing insider trader on the stock market by members of Congress. That was our first big project. We've gone on to expose a whole host of other corrupt actors and you can find out more about what we do at Government Accountability Institute. If you just Google that, you can come to our website and see the kind of research we're doing and you.

B (13:57)

Take on all comers. I don't think you get Christmas cards from Mitch McConnell, for example.

A (14:01)

Would I be correct? There are some Republicans that are not particularly happy with us. That is correct.

B (14:07)

Not fans. Before we go to break. Yeah, Peter, this is obviously what you're talking is very serious stuff, actually very disturbing. And I don't want to belittle it, but I can't help but think of the show get Smart. People of a certain age will remember that the evil operation known as chaos. Or think of all these Bond movies where they're, you know, headquarters and layers where evil people, the forces of darkness, ran their operations. Now, maybe it's. Maybe such layers or headquarters are not needed in the sage of bandwidth. But if there were to be a headquarters of the foreign actors seeking to destabilize America through immigration, where would it likely be located? For all I know, it could be within the United States of America. And what international personality. And I'm going to ask you more about some of these personalities later. But what particular personality or figure do you think has the most influence on this network of bad actors who hate America?

A (15:07)

You know, it's a good question because it's not a network in the sense that they are working together. It's a confluence of interests. I think Mexico, China, the Muslim Brotherhood, they all have different goals. They share a common goal, and they want to diminish the United States and they want to extend their interests. So I don't know if they're coordinating together, but I think if you look at it from the standpoint of what makes this possible, you have the foreign bad actors who are trying to use immigration as a weapon. They really require people in the United States to allow the gates to be open or to not deal with the political hostile political networks that have been established in our country. So I think you have to look at political figures like Barack Obama and Joe Biden and other Democrats who don't share the same exact goals as these foreign actors, but they benefit politically from mass migration. And I have a section in the book called Voter Mills where one of the title comes from an email from a White House staffer saying if people realized what we were doing, they would accuse us of running voter mills. So I would look at those Americans who are complicit in this for their political benefit. They have acknowledged as such, it is to their political benefit, and they should they should know better, but they're choosing to do this, this bargain with our foreign adversaries for their own benefit.

B (16:32)

It. Well, I have a few more questions to ask Peter Schweitzer and author of the Invisible Coup, and I will do that when we come back from these important messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Peter, thanks so much for pinch hitting. You know, Victor's a big fan of yours and he's very happy to know that you were going to be doing this. So thank you. For me, thank you from, from him. Before I ask the important question, and I just came to me, I am curious, do you, do you like writing these books? Do you enjoy writing? Is it pushing a rock up a hill or is this something.

A (17:11)

It's terrible. It's terrible. I don't, I don't like writing. I love research. My, my excitement here is when you, when you're, you know, working your way through the mine shaft and you find a veil of gold or you find diamonds, that's the true excitement for me. The problem is to convey it to people. You have to write it in the form of a book. So if I could get away with just doing the research, that would be my happy place. And it kind of reflects in the timeline, by the way. I basically take two years, I would say probably 18 months of that is the research. I have a team of researchers I work with, fluent in Chinese, other skill sets. They're enormously helpful in this. And then the remainder of the time. So maybe 25% of the time is writing. And I subscribe to these, Jack, that if you, if you do the research at the front end, the book will almost write itself. Not entirely, but it'll almost write itself.

B (18:09)

Okay, well, let's get back to Mexico, which you raised before. So maybe, hopefully it's not too redundant here. But, Peter, let's. It's our next door neighbor talk about it. It's the portal that is so central to the destabilization process. Who are the baddest of actors in Mexico? And are they members of the drug cartel or more so, members of the Mexican government and the Mexican elite? And is there anything that smacks of a de facto strategic or operational plan in Mexico for exploiting the United States for the purposes of, and I say of what? Of enriching themselves? Or is it possibly also just the sheer pleasure of seeing the United States harmed? Maybe both.

A (18:54)

Yeah, I think it's a combination of those. I think it's a fusion, particularly of the drug cartels and The Morena Party, which is the ruling party in Mexico. Lopez Obrador Amlo, the previous president, the first president of that party to really achieve power. Sheinbaum, the current president, is his protege. As I point out in the book, there's a long known financial history between Sheinbaum, Amlo and the drug cartels. This is the preferred party in Mexico because of the way that it operates. And what the Marina Party has done, Jack, is really worked to radicalize and weaponize migrants living in the United States. So, you know, I mentioned before that you have these elected Mexican officials that live in the United States. Almost all of them are Morena Party members. And. And so take a guy like Alejandro Robles. He sits in the Mexican Parliament. He was the international director of operations for the Marina Party in the United states. And in 2025, he went across the United States, in his words, quote, organizing the militancy, end quote, against Donald Trump and the Trump administration. He met with the People's Forum, which is close to the antifa movement. He was fanning the flames for violent protests in Los Angeles. There are similar elected officials that are doing the same thing that were at ground zero, really, for the Los Angeles riots. So this is the network that is trying to push its political agenda in the United States and divide us. And to be clear how. How terrible this push is, one of the things Alejandro roble said in 2025 is that Mexicans who come to the United States and assimilate and embrace American values and learn the language are traitors. They're traitors to Mexico and ought to be treated as such. And he added that Sheinbaum, the president, who he knows well, agrees with him. So the point is, they do not want their countrymen coming here, embracing the American dream, adopting American values and assimilating. They want them not to be assimilated. They want them to be loyal to Mexico. In fact, Sheinbaum had a song commission called the Migrant Hymn, which I have the lyrics on in the book, which is this sort of virulent nationalist cause for ignoring borders and staying loyal to Mexico and against the United States.

B (21:31)

Wow. Well, it's been a. It's been a radical country for well over a century. I think we got deluded by these Hollywood movies of the 1940s. You know, they were kind of comedies, but it's been a. It's been bad, bad actors. Let's talk, Peter, about Pope Francis in your book. You put a spotlight on him. And I'm Catholic, and I don't know if you are or aren't it doesn't really matter. Go ahead, you know, treat him like a pinata as far as I'm concerned. So aside from the immigration issue, he seemed to be no friend of America. Kind of remember him standing close to the border, looking over America, given at the evil eye when he was visiting Mexico early on when he spoke. And of course, he was a Peronist from Argentina. Anyway, as regards the flow of scores of millions of migrants, I don't know if I should use that term, migrants around the globe. Francis seemed to make it a theological requirement, or even like a spiritual obligation to accept people from foreign lands who would prove inherently hostile to assimilation, not only in the United States, but in the heart of Christendom, in Germany, France, Italy, we must accept Muslims. Give us your assessment of the role of the late Pope, the role he played in this invisible coup against America. And in your opinion, were his actions on immigration willful and strategic, or were they the product of poor theology or both?

A (23:05)

It's a great question. I'm not Catholic, so I don't want to speak out of turn because I'm not fully versed in Catholic theology. But there's enough information, I think, clearly, that much of his teaching on mass migration is not really consistent with at least what recent popes had said. I mean, yes, there was always this sense of, you need to welcome people that are refugees, you need to help people that are suffering and struggling, which I think is a foundation of all Christian teaching. But what you had with Francis were several steps beyond that. And one of the things I focused in the book on Jack is his background in Latin America. When you look at the people that mentored him when he was rising up in the church in South America, they all say that he's a liberation theologist. It's. It's slightly different than the full Marxist version of it, but it's kind of a cultural Marxist version of liberation theology. So faith becomes subject to political action. And for Francis, migration and the opening of borders was a key component of that. And when he talked about the reasons that migration were. Was. Was a positive thing on a mass scale, he not only focused on the humanitarian sense that it helps people that are victims in the developing world, he also said it was important because Western societies needed transformation, Europe needed transformation, the United States needed transformation. And that's something you find with a lot of progressives, that. That at the end of the day, when you sort of scratch below the surface, they admit that. That a big part of the reason they like immigration is they feel that Western societies are too individualistic, they're too materialistic, too selfish. And the way you change them, you can't really change them politically. So the way you do that is by changing the demographics. So I think that Pope Francis played a very important role for this. He was very supportive, I would say, or non critical of, of the more left wing regimes in Latin America. I Venezuela with, yeah, with, with Fidel Castro in, in the book where he had nothing but positive things to say about Fidel Castro and yet he'd be very critical of the United States. So I think he played a very, very important role and I do think it was not just theological, I think it was strategic. And he viewed this as part of a opportunity to sort of extend a Latin American culture into the heart of the United States.

B (25:50)

Yeah, I always had the sense, I'm practicing Catholic. He really disdained America and that's, it's, it's hard, it's hard to think your leader doesn't like you for the, because of where you live. Hey Peter, we got one more question and I'll, we'll wrap it up. Hope it'll be a good question. I hope it'll be a good question. We'll do that when we come back from these final important messages. Messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words, pinch hitting for us today on as we're recording Thursday 12th February. This episode will be up on Friday the 13th. Is the great Peter Schweitzer, New York Times best selling author. His new book the Invisible Coup, this week, third week in a row, number one on top of that list. Congratulations to you, Peter. Folks, go up, go, go get it. And this is, it's very well written. Even though you didn't like writing it, Peter. It's, it's, it's really accessible and as, as all your other books are disturbing because you, you know, you read your books and you, you sit there thinking, am I the stooge? Is everyone else at the dinner table with me? Then they, you know, do dash, run off and I get stuck with, with the bill. You uncover regularly so much fleecing of good and normal people. So congratulations to the whole scope of your work, but in particular this book. Final question about the book though. Let us, let me turn a symbol, a great symbol on its head. I'm going to use Mount Rushmore. If it could be carved with four figures, I'm going to use two Mount Rushmore, four individuals. The first whose face would deserve enshrinement as a leader. As leaders in this Invisible coup. Who would they be? Foreign Americans? Who? And then if there was a separate monument to maliciousness, what four organizations would deserve this distinction? They could be actual non profits, they could be international government institutions, agencies, it could be World Economic Forum, Davos. What four organizations should Americans consider most negatively consequential to the well being of our nation?

A (28:13)

Boy, those are great questions. I would say the four people that I would enshrine on the bad Mount Rushmore as it relates to the book would be President Xi of China. The fact that China has exploited birthright citizenship on an industrial scale, where we've got now more than 1, according to Chinese estimates, more than 1 million US citizens living in China that are going to be able to vote and other things they have done as well. President Xi definitely deserves to be on there. I think President Sheinbaum of Mexico, maybe amlo, maybe you could do a half, half face of each one would be the second one. And then I think you've got to look domestically and I think when you look at the role that Barack Obama played in really opening the floodgates, I, the biggest numbers were under Joe Biden, but it really began under Barack Obama. He for example, created these 10 year visas so that, that Chinese birth tourism just skyrocketed. You had people coming and having three or four of their children, military officers, and they could do so because under Barack Obama you had these 10 year visas and a whole host of other things that he did. And then the final one would probably be Joe Biden. And I think the evidence is, is clear that he opened up the floodgates for political reasons. It was not human libertarian. So those would probably be the four that I would put there. There would certainly be some honorable mentions, but those would be the top four as far as the institutions concerned. That's really a great question. I would have to say one of them would be, you know, it would probably be the Department of Homeland Security under Democratic presidents because what, what they, what they literally have done, they did it. Of course we didn't have the Department of Homeland Security under Bill Clinton, but it started with Clinton, Barack Obama and of course Joe Biden is Democratic presidents come into office and they completely gutted the citizenship requirements. Right? You're supposed to undergo a criminal background check, you're supposed to pass a civics test, you're supposed to test a Lang pass a language test and a morals test. Right. Have you been charged with anything? They gutted those, they, they ignored hundreds of thousands of criminal background checks because they just wanted to mint new vot voters. That's clear. So I think the, the exploitation of that government agency by Democrats is astoundingly bad. I think if you look at on the charitable side, I would look at Catholic Charities and Lutheran Services. They've been involved in resettling refugees and migrants. This is a huge source of funding for them. It exploded under Joe Biden. Bigger numbers mean bigger dollars. But when you look at the mission statements of why they want mass migration, they will always say because it's transformative to the host country. In other words, they see this as a means for, you know, social change. And then the final, I guess element would be the progressive nonprofits like Progressive International, which are providing political coverage for this goal of weaponizing immigration as a means by which they can transform America's society and consolidate their political power.

B (31:38)

Yeah, it's shocking. Maybe shouldn't be. Having read your other books. How much American Money through aid bankrolled so much of this madness while we were some people were sleeping at the switch. Well, anyway, Peter Schweitzer, congratulations again for the Invisible Coup. How American al elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon. There it is folks who are watching this on YouTube and rumble. Great book and Peter, thanks for all the great work you've done. Deeply appreciate you coming here today. Pinch hitting for Victor and check out Peter's website, peterschweitzer.com and you'll find other other entities of his life through that. We will be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hansen in his Own words. Thanks and bye bye. 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.