← Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
How ‘Midwest Nice’ Minnesota Became Ground Zero for Leftist Violence and Fraud | Jack Fowler & Tyler O'Neil
00:48:03
Leftists’ Two-Pronged Attack in Minnesota Against Trump and Law and Order | Jack Fowler Traditionally, Minnesotans, by virtue of their Scandinavian heritage, are known for being well-mannered and having good governance.
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- [00:00]
Tyler O'Neill
Minnesota is, you know, a Midwest, nice sort of old style. You get a lot of Scandinavian heritage there. You get a focus on good governance, good government. So they pride themselves on being the last sort of place that fraud and abuse would happen. And lo and behold, the democratic government in the state has been enabling fraud for years. Governor Waltz's administration ordered the an investigative unit inside one of these huge departments to not investigate criminal fraud. Meanwhile, we also see this neo confederate push essentially to nullify federal immigration law. They're pitting themselves against the federal government and against the enforcement of immigration law while their shock troops are on the ground willing to engage anyone. And I think that's where we get this utterly beyond the pale invasion of a church.
- [00:58]
Jack Fowler
The attorney general kind of high fived the whole church invasion.
- [01:03]
Tyler O'Neill
I reached out to the offices of Tim Waltz and Keith Ellison, who's the attorney general in Minnesota. Ellison didn't respond to me. Waltz did. Waltz gave this very weak. Like he said, we support peaceful protests, but I don't support what happened there. Keith Ellison, on the other hand, said, oh, this is America. If people are angry at you, you have to put up with it.
- [01:36]
Jack Fowler
Well, hello, ladies, and hello, gentlemen. Welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Alas, without Victor Davis Hansen. I'm Jack Fowler, the host of the show. And as many of you know, Victor is recuperating from surgeries, plural. He's moving ahead two steps forward, one step back. He is recuperating, and he is very appreciative of all the love and concern and prayers he's getting. But we are keeping this podcast going while he recuperates. And today we are recording on January 22nd. This episode will be up on the 29th. I'm actually literally in the studios of the Daily Signal, which is the happy home of Victor Davis Hansen, in his own words. And I have with me today to ask five questions. That's what we're doing, these Victor Recuperation podcast episodes. I have Tyler o', Neill, who is a senior writer. Senior editor.
- [02:31]
Tyler O'Neill
Editor.
- [02:32]
Jack Fowler
Senior writer.
- [02:33]
Tyler O'Neill
Senior editor. Yeah.
- [02:33]
Jack Fowler
Let me make you senior president. Move over.
- [02:37]
Tyler O'Neill
Louie would have a word to say about that. Move over.
- [02:40]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. He is going to be my guest today, and I have five questions. Two of them, or three of them are going to be about two important books he's written. And we'll get to all that when we come back from these initial important messages.
- [02:52]
Narrator/Announcer
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.
- [03:22]
Jack Fowler
We are back with Victor Davis Hanson in his own words again recording on Thursday the 22nd. This episode up a week later on Thursday the 29th. Tyler, thanks very much for making yourself available. I deeply appreciate it. You're the author of Making Hate the Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Go ahead, show, give us a show there. And the woke the Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government. So we're going to talk about both of those books because even though one of them's about five years old, maybe four or five, it's still six, actually.
- [04:04]
Tyler O'Neill
Okay, 2020.
- [04:05]
Jack Fowler
Still extremely, extremely relevant. But the first thing I think I want to ask you about, and it's kind of current and you've been covering it, and it's maddening and frustrating and actually scary at some levels, and I'm sure our listeners and viewers are deeply concerned about it, is the madness that's going on in Minneapolis or Minnesota. In total, the left is going crazy there. We had a few days ago from when we are talking there was that church invasion that I think most Americans should be shocked at. But, Tyler, I have a feeling there's maybe a significant percentage of Americans who are very ideological who aren't shocked by it and are actually maybe thrilled by it. But why don't you tell us you've been covering this big enchilada. What do you have to say about it all?
- [05:01]
Tyler O'Neill
Yeah, well, I think Minnesota is a very interesting ground zero for these things to be taking place because Minnesota is a Midwest, nice sort of old style. You get a lot of Scandinavian heritage there. You get a focus on good governance, good government. And so they pride themselves on being the last sort of place that fraud and abuse would happen. And lo and behold, the democratic government in the state has been enabling fraud for years. And really, one of the shocking things that I was able to report was that Governor Waltz's administration ordered an investigative unit inside one of these huge departments to not investigate criminal fraud. And now they were telling me their statement is, oh, yeah, well, that was just we didn't want them doing criminal stuff. We still wanted them investigating. But all the whistleblowers have been saying from the beginning that they're trying to hide up this fraud. Meanwhile, we also see this neo confederate push essentially to nullify federal immigration law. And it's not just Tim Waltz and Mayor Jacob Frey, who are out there saying, we don't want to follow these laws in Minnesota and ice, you can leave, go pound sand. I know Frey used even more colorful language than that, but they're pitting themselves against the federal government and against the enforcement of immigration law while their shock troops are on the ground willing to engage anyone. And I think that's where we get this utterly beyond the pale invasion of a church. And so that's the main thing. I mean, today we're recording on the 22nd, that's the day that we got the news that many of the ringleaders of this church invasion were arrested. But for those who don't know, on Sunday, there was the city's church in St. Paul was hosting a normal service. And this activist lady who apparently has gotten $1 million working in NGOs in Minnesota.
- [07:21]
Jack Fowler
Nonprofit. Nonprofit funding of ideology.
- [07:27]
Tyler O'Neill
Yeah, exactly. She was in the audience, in the congregation, and she asked a question, and the pastor at first engaged with her, and then she asked him about this pastor who apparently also worked for ice. And the pastor saw what was happening, the senior pastor she was talking with and said, shame, because he knew that this was all a gotcha to try to, you know, disrupt the church service. And so it was when he didn't respond to her, she got up and others rushed into the. Into the sanctuary. You know this because they published the videos themselves, these sick people. And they're rushing in and they're taking video and they're saying, you know, they're chanting justice for Renee Goode. And one of the things they chanted was, who shut this down? We shut this down. This being a service to worship our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I'm sitting there going like, this is not something we would ever expect to see in the United States of America. And these activists not only shared the videos, they were proud of them, but compared their activism here, their agitation, to Jesus flipping over the tables in the temple. And for those of us who don't know, Jesus did that because they were taking the house of God and turning it into, as he said, a den of robbers. But they were doing so in the outer courts, which is the only place that the Gentiles could come into the Jewish temple. And so Jesus was saying, no, we need to be able to have the Gentiles here. And the idea that you would compare this interruption of a church service, where they said they're shutting it down in order to push their partisan secular agenda against comparing it to Jesus, is just mind boggling.
- [09:27]
Jack Fowler
So this is One big question, because I'm going to ask you five big questions, but we'll keep this still under the scope of the first question. The attorney general kind of high fived the whole church invasion, didn't he?
- [09:42]
Tyler O'Neill
Yes, yes. Keith Ellison. So I saw this news when it happened on Sunday, and I reached out to the offices of Tim Waltz and Keith Ellison, who's the Attorney General in Minnesota. Ellison didn't respond to me. Waltz did. Waltz gave this very weak. Like he said, we support peaceful protests, but I don't support what happened there. And it's like, okay, but come on. I mean, this was an invasion of a church service. Keith Ellison, on the other hand, said, oh, this is America. If people are angry at you, you have to put up with it, essentially. And was saying, on the one hand, this is a church service. On the other hand, this is the right to free speech, to protest. And I'm like, you don't have the right of free speech to jam into. To trespass on a church building that's in the middle of service. Like, that's not. That is trespassing. That is not a protest. And Keith Ellison even dismissed the idea that the freedom of access to clinic entrances, or Face act, could be applied to protect the church. Even though, I mean, he should know. He's the top law enforcement official in Minnesota. He should know that the clear and plain language of the Face act says that it protects houses of worship, it protects people's First Amendment rights to go and exercise their religion, and it does also, unfortunately, protect abortion clinic entrances. But that is one half. The other half is this religious freedom protection.
- [11:26]
Jack Fowler
Well, I'm glad you mentioned neo Confederacy, because that is a theme. The namesake of the show Victor Davis Hanson, has been writing about for quite a while. And to see Minnesota become South Carolina. Minnesota of 2026 is South Carolina of 1860. Tim Walls of 2026 is George Wallace of whatever year it was, 1963 or whenever he stood on the steps of schools. There really is a deep Confederate comparison to the way the left, especially the left in Minnesota is acting. Any thoughts on that before I read a commercial?
- [12:14]
Tyler O'Neill
Yes. Well, I think the George Wallace comparison, you know, that's an interesting one. The one that I think is the strongest is that neo Confederate claim, because what we're seeing here, it very much echoes the nullification crisis. You know, I think Americans tend to remember the Civil War in broad strokes. We think, oh, yeah, the south wanted slavery, the north wanted freedom. It's actually a lot more complicated than that. What the north wanted was to the south wanted to expand slavery into the free territories that from the days of the Northwest ordinan, the new United States of America, had decided, we're going to have free soil in our territories. And the south said, no, every land in the United States should be open to slavery. And so they pushed for that. And when they got many concessions, I mean, if you look at the history of the 1850s, that entire decade is essentially the south winning victory after victory after victory. And when Lincoln eventually wins in the election of 1860, that represented much like Trump's victories in our politics today represents the response of the Americans who had been railroaded over the past decade. So Abraham Lincoln said, no, we want to draw a line, and I'm going to stand by the Constitution. The Compromise of 1820 said, you will not have slavery in these territories. And the south knew how strong he was in fighting the expansion of slavery and couldn't put up with it. So they said no, and they tried to opt out of the entire constitutional project. And that is what we're seeing here. We're seeing over and over, the left saying, immigration law is beyond the pale, should not be enforced. We're gonna nullify it by any means necessary. And Trump is saying, no. We have these laws on the books that Congress debated, passed, the President signed, and we'd been hearing year after year, we had the famous Gang of Eight. What we've had in American in our immigration issue has been the left demanding open borders, and the right kind of saying, maybe we want immigration reform. We'll give you some amnesty if you give us actual enforcement. And they've been railroaded for decades. And only now, when Trump puts his foot down, now we see the real ugly face. The left saying, no, we want essentially a full invasion of this country.
- [15:06]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well, not only a full invasion, they don't want the gravy train to be stopped, because as you pointed out earlier, there's a lot of money going into this, and a lot of people are making a lot of money off of it also. So race obsessed. The left is race obsessed, and the race is nullification obsessed. So 1860, here we are again. Now, before I'm going to ask you next about former Senator Ben Sasse, who you've written about, but before that, I have to tell you, you know, last night, I was at a dinner in West Hartford, Connecticut, of the Brownstone Institute, which is a really interesting organization, actually. It's a great organization. And about 100 people show up. It's at a Chinese restaurant, and for 100, we'll say, right? A center. People have a monthly meeting at a Chinese restaurant. It's kind of interesting thing, but there's a lot of food there. And you eat it. And then you come home, you're like, what did I do? The first thing I did, I went to my office. And if sometimes I record, as you know, I record the show from my office at my home in Milford, Connecticut. And some people come. You can see in the background. I have a little machine there. It's my covp. Pure machine. I go right. I went right to it last night. 16 ounces of water I'd like. I need something. I need to feel good here. And Cove Pure does that. It's terrific. So, folks, water is fundamental to getting healthy in this. It's early new year. Look, you can eat a ton of Chinese food any day of the year, but, you know, I'm doing it while I'm still getting rid of all the Christmas fudge. So it's been a rough. A rough few weeks. So here's the thing. Everyone jumps into the new year, buying new supplements, trying new diets or workouts, but they completely ignore the most important basic thing, and that's water. And even mild hydration impacts energy focus and metabolism. And when you think about all the garbage that's in our water, you start. You're starting behind the curve before you even begin. But CovCure changes that immediately, folks. Their Clearwave technology is certified to remove up to 99.9% of contaminants. Pretty much anything that isn't water. PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceuticals residue, fluoride, all of it, all of it gets removed. And it's the purest water you can get. Now, I'm going to tell you two reasons why I have a lot of reasons why I love my Cove Pure. First is taste. I should say the lack of taste. Sorry. If you live in Connecticut, you know what I'm talking about. Pour something out of the. Get some water out of the tap and like, okay, takes. Gotta hold your nose sometimes to drink it. There's a funk to it. But Cove Pure, I put all. I only drink through Cove Pure now. And it doesn't taste at all. That's the nice thing. But it's refreshing, it's clean, it's clear. So that's one thing. Then I also use it for all purposes now. Ice cubes, coffee, making soup, even the. The dog. The dog, the plants. I water the plants of my Cove Pure water because it's pur. I really, really like it. I think our listeners and viewers will like it, too. So COVP Pure makes it so easy to get pure water with the push of a button this year. Make a New Year's resolution. You can still do that. We're still in January. That sticks. Improve your health with clean water. Right now, you can get $200 off for a limited time if you use the link. Covure.comv d h v d h stands for Victor Davis Hansen. That's covpure. C o v e p u r e.comvdh to start this new year. Right. And we thank the very good people at COVPure for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Before we go to a break, I want you to tell us about Ben Sasse's important message for the world. You wrote this really wonderful piece the other day for the Daily Signal about the former senator who announced right before Christmas that he's dying of pancreatic cancer. Why did you think it was important to write about this?
- [19:07]
Tyler O'Neill
Yeah, well, I've been following Ben Sasse for some time. He's a stalwart conservative who, you know, I don't always see eye to eye with every decision he's made. But, you know, we were glad to see him. My wife is a gator, so seeing him take over the University of Florida was a positive thing. And I've been following him since he was a senator, and he's always been a strong man of God. And I was heartbroken to see the news that he is diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. As he said, it's a death sentence. But the thing that really stood out to me was the way he addressed it. He said, I, I have a death sentence, and it's a lot sooner than I would like, but we all have a death sentence. And it's very easy in our modern day to ignore the fact of our mortality. Like, we have so many entertainment options. We're so focused on consumerism, on politics, on business, on enjoying ourselves, that we often forget that memento mori that, you know, most people throughout history, they didn't have the luxury of not seeing death. Like the rates of death in childbirth, both for children, young children, and for the mothers who carried them were extremely high. And then you had the fact that war was more common, especially existential wars, where people knew, I mean, you would not. So I am 36. My grandparents, my grandfathers and one of my grandmothers have passed away, but I still have one grandmother left. I still have both my parents, my wife's family is still pretty much intact. And we get very small tastes of death, whereas most of our ancestors, you can't. You can't go a year without somebody around you dying. And this is a constant reminder. And Ben Sasse took this opportunity to say he gave people a lens into his home life, talked about everything that his daughters are doing, talked about what his relationship with his wife was like. Not anything wrongful, but just. He gave us a challenge, a few, and then said, there's never a good time to tell your parents that they're likely to bury you. There's never a good time to tell your wife that you're not going to be around to tell your daughters that you won't be able to walk them down the aisle. But there's a certain fittingness to saying that in the time of Advent leading up to Christmas, because it's not just us remembering the birth of Jesus and the new hope he brought to the world. It's also that the season of Advent is looking forward to the resurrection, the second Resurrection, the coming of Jesus, and when he will raise us all from the tomb. And so he mentions the sort of hope that he has. You know, he's a man on death row, essentially. He's sharing pictures of himself on X where he has boils all over his face and saying, this is a good thing, because it means that one of the worst problems with my health can be solved. And, I mean, this is a guy who knows no end of courage, Right?
- [22:50]
Jack Fowler
I agree.
- [22:50]
Tyler O'Neill
And he's saying, I have hope, and my hope is not one of those hallmark hope things. This isn't some flaccid, like, oh, I believe one day humanity will prevail. He is going through some of the roughest pain of his life. Well, the last pain of his life, unfortunately. And he's saying, my hope in Jesus is strong because I know, you know, it's like the words of Job, I know that my redeemer liveth and that at the last day he shall come on the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God my eyes and not another. And, you know, I sung Handel's Messiah at the end of last year, and that music has always really spoken to me. But that hope of the Resurrection, it's a strong, masculine hope. It's not a hope that says our struggles now don't matter. It's not a hope that says, I don't have pain. You know, ignore your pain now. It's a hope that says our pain is real. This mortal coil is horrible and devastating and tragic. But there is an even, there is an amazing promise that we have in Jesus and that raising up of the corpse that we can all look forward to. You know, those of us who believe in the gospel can look forward to the ultimate vindication and not of our own merits, but from the grace of Christ. And those of us who, you know, and we pray that those who haven't embraced it can do so. But I think it's all, you know, that's the message that Ben Sasse is giving his all to speak at the end.
- [24:53]
Jack Fowler
And in a time and an age of easy victimhood, he has totally rejected that. We're gonna take a break, but I gotta tell you before we go, Ben's a friend and has been for a long time. And when I was publisher of National Review and this is like pre Trump, after Trump, you know, there's that dividing line in conservatism. But we helped, we were very instrumental in helping Ben win his primary and he succeeded. So we became pretty good friends. And speaking of podcasts, we're on podcasts. We had toyed around long, long time ago with the idea of a po. I don't know if you remember at the time, Jerry Seinfeld had a show, a short show, comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. And we toyed around with the idea of conservatives and trucks eating jerky, but with Ben being the star and Ben having a trip, but it didn't work out. So anyway, maybe it's good that didn't happen. But he's a great man and he knows what you're getting at. I has not seen ears, not heard what God has ready for those who love him. So, folks, we are going to come back. I have some questions. We were talking nice things about Ben Sasse. We're going to talk about bad things about the Southern Poverty Law Center. We're going to do that when we come back from these important messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. I'm here with Tyler o', Neill, senior editor at the Daily Signal. Tyler, you can't stand the Southern Poverty Law Center. Jeez, I can't either. You wrote a book about it, Making Hate the Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Would you tell us about it? And would you also tell us the role the Southern Poverty Law center plays for a lot of like, credentialing, bad kind of credentialing for foundations, grant making, that sort of thing? Among the many bad things it does? That's the one that strikes me as most Troublesome, but go ahead.
- [26:47]
Tyler O'Neill
It's frustrating because we say the Southern Poverty Law center, and you immediately think, oh, a law center that represents poor people in the south, it's gotta be a good thing, right?
- [26:59]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [27:00]
Tyler O'Neill
And that is actually how they started. They were a nonprofit litigation firm representing poor people who couldn't afford it. And they had a lot of really important cases in the early years. But their founder, their co founder, Morris Dees, had a personal relationship with the Ku Klux Klan. His uncle was a member. And that drove him. He realized at some point. Now, to be clear, the Klan is the most notorious hate group in America. There isn't enough condemnation that I could give to the Klan. Right. But when the Southern Poverty Law center went after the Klan and decided that it would make fighting the Klan its number one thing, the do good lawyers at the Southern Poverty Law center who signed up to represent poor people in the south quit because they said, this isn't what we signed up to do. And when they sued the Klan, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Morse Dees would get these multimillion dollar judgments. So the biggest case is the Boula Mae Donald case. That's the one the Southern Poverty Law center stakes its reputation on. And it was a just case. They represented woman, a mother whose son had been lynched by a Klan group. And so this Klan group barely existed. And so the SPLC sued the Klan group. The Klan group didn't have a leg to stand on. And of course they deserve to be sued into bankruptcy. They're the Klan, but they had 50 grand to their name. Morris Dees gets a $7 million judgment against them. They don't have $7 million. So that money is supposed to go to Bulla Mae Donald, the bereaved widow. Right. She gets 50 grand. Morris Dees goes to his donors and says, we bankrupted the Klan. We got a seven million dollar judgment, give us money. They get about two million dollars. Meanwhile, the money from the Klan group goes to Boula Mae Donald. She gets 50 grand. What does she do with that money? Oh, she gives it right back to the Southern Poverty Law center, which had given her a loan for her home, which was about 40 grand. So the bereaved widow is left with barely anything. And the Southern Poverty Law center has all the money from their donors. And this is the model that we see from the Southern Poverty Law center time and time again.
- [29:31]
Jack Fowler
It stumbled upon a racket. Not stumbled upon, it created.
- [29:35]
Tyler O'Neill
It cultivated a racket. So right now, the Southern Poverty Law center center has an endowment of $740 million. That's larger than most universities in America. I mean, it's insanely wealthy. And how does it have this money? Well, one of the main reasons it gets this money is because it publishes a thing called the hate Map. This is a map where it plots hate groups across the country. It started as an effort to monitor the Ku Klux Klan, but of course, the hate map started to include neo Nazis. Okay, makes sense to put them on skinheads. They're racist. They're kind of weird. Okay. Most Americans don't like them. Suddenly you see anti immigration groups. And then in 2010, they start putting pro family groups like the Family Research Council on there. And then they put Alliance Defending Freedom. In recent years, they've gone completely off the reservation. They put Moms for Liberty. This year they put Turning Point USA on there right before the assassination of Charlie Kir. I wonder if those two events might be related. But for years, I could go on and on. I testified about this in December. But for years, they defended themselves from claims that they were anti Christian because they put conservative Christian groups on the hate map. And they said, we're not anti Christian. And the only evidence they ever gave that they're not anti Christian is that they didn't put Focus on the Family on the hate Map. So on their FAQ page for years, they clearly updated it. It was there for years. There's this language clearing up the major misconception that they're anti Christian. Well, suddenly last year, that language disappeared from the website. And lo and behold, In May of 2025, they put focus on the Family on the hate map. Which means that by the SPLC's own admission, they are an anti Christian organization. Yeah.
- [31:37]
Jack Fowler
What were you testifying about specifically on.
- [31:41]
Tyler O'Neill
The Southern Poverty Law Center? They had a whole hearing. And the most fascinating thing about that hearing is that the Congressional Black Caucus and another one of these coalition letters of 260 left wing groups demanded that Congress not hold the hearing, essentially preventing me from testifying. And they said, this isn't really about the Southern Poverty Law Center. This is about all of civil society. And they kept this canard up. And it's insane, because there is no organization that is a worse threat to civil society, especially conservative civil society, than the Southern Poverty Law Center. We had a terrorist attack that was inspired by the Southern Poverty Law center here in D.C. where a man had a semiautomatic pistol and a bag of Chick Fil A sandwiches. He planned to shoot everyone in the Family Research Council and smear a Chick Fil a sandwich in their faces. And this guy, you know, was convicted. This is all known stuff. It's just every time the left. So, yeah, the main thing, the SPLC is used to prevent money from going to conservative organizations that are put on the hate map. And the way this happens is you have these donor advised funds where Americans will want to give some of their money to charity and they'll work with a donor advised fund. And the donor advised fund will say, okay, we can give to some organizations, we won't give to other organizations. That's fine. They have every right to do that. But they often outsource that decision to the SPLC because they have this hate map. And what that ends up doing is it ends up shifting our charitable dollars away from deserving conservative causes and toward the left.
- [33:36]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [33:37]
Tyler O'Neill
And the SPLC also uses the hate map to try to make unthinkable opposition to its own agenda. So the SPLC on the one hand, is pushing in schools gender ideology and critical race theory, saying that white people are inherently privileged and black people are inherently oppressed and pushing this really horrible idea that boys can become girls just by saying so, and that it is healthy to mutilate your own body in pursuit of this false agenda. And groups like Moms for Liberty say, no, our schools should not be able to do that. So on the one hand, SPLC is an activist saying we want these ideas in schools. On the other hand, they are cutting off the debate. They're shutting the Overton window on groups that oppose their agenda. So it's this one, two punch that really almost is a form of. I was reading some interesting applications of antitrust law, but I mean, it's almost a form of violating antitrust by saying we will argue for our position while preventing people from opposing our position.
- [34:50]
Jack Fowler
I'm going to follow up a little bit with you, but first I want our listeners and viewers to know that 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 pushed its currency beyond discipline eventually paid a price. The wise never waited for 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 which has outlasted every paper experiment in human history. That's physical gold, not as speculation but as insulation. Our reputation matters, which is why I'm talking about the Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. Which is why we've partnered with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability and an A rating with a 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 to 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. By the way, we have a big storm coming. I want you to call, get a pencil, paper, write this down. 844-7909-1918-4479-0919 visit protectwithvictor.com One more time. 8447-9091-9184-4790-9191 or visit protectwithvictor.com History rewards those who take the long view. And we thank the very good people from Allegiance Gold for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. I want to ask you about the other book you've written. We have two books, two questions left. I do want to say, and this is not an ad, we're not giving out free ads. But people should be aware, lots of conservatives, they give their money to these wacko colleges. Who knows why they give their money to Fidelity or Vanguard. They have donor advised funds there. And then they find out just as you've addressed, oh my gosh, the money. I wanted money to go to this place. But they're saying no because the Southern Poverty Law center has blackballed this totally legitimate institution. So people should be conscious of where they're if they're involved, donor advised funds, they should be very wary and they should do their research beforehand. So let's talk about your next book. I'm going to ask you a question. We're going to take a break and then we're going to have one last question. It's the Woke depos, the Dark money cabal manipulating the federal government. Why do you There was a dark money cabal. Let me ask you, you know, let's go back a few years. What is the what impact did leftist groups have in the Biden administration?
- [38:12]
Tyler O'Neill
Yeah, what impact did leftist groups not have in the Biden administration? Is the better question. Yeah, so I, you know, we were talking about the Southern Poverty Law Center. I was flabbergasted to see just how much influence they had in the Biden administration. So for those who don't remember, I get that this was 2019, it was seven years ago now, but the SPLC had a massive scandal, a racial discrimination, sexual harassment scandal where they fired their co founder Morris Dees, and they tried to move the organization into a new direction. And many of these things, they had Tina Chen who was a fixer who essentially brush the claims under the rug and then they have a union busting scandal. If there's an organization on the left that Democrats should not be welcoming into the White House, you would think it would be the Southern Poverty Law Center. And yet time and time again, we saw President Biden nominate an SPLC attorney to a top federal judgeship. We saw him welcome the SPLC into the White House. We saw SPLC staffers advising, giving presentations to prosecutors at a civil rights at the Office of Civil Rights's training in the DOJ under Biden. And of course we saw that notorious memo from the FBI's Richmond office saying that they should follow radical traditional Catholics, which by the way, their source on that was none other than the Southern Poverty Law Center. And so, so this made me think if the worst of the worst organization could have this much impact in the Biden administration, which other leftist groups had similar impacts in the Biden administration. And I didn't have to do that much. I mean, it feels like it wasn't that much deep dive research for me because I know how to do this stuff. But like if you look at, I have hundreds of footnotes checking various things, where the money went where, who was meeting at the White House with whom. But if you go through the list, I mean, the Southern Poverty Law center is the worst in my opinion. But you also had the Human Rights Campaign, you had the American Civil Liberties Union. And one of the biggest ones was the center for American Progress, which is John Podesta's group and he's of course the former Clinton chief of staff.
- [40:42]
Jack Fowler
It's a taste for blood, right?
- [40:43]
Tyler O'Neill
Yes. Oh yes. Well, and it's like one thing after another. So I have this chart in here, I have it twice in there where I lay out all the connections. I call it my Sheldon Whitehouse chart or my Beautiful Mind chart, because. And it's not to say that this was all a grand conspiracy where everybody was in on it at the same time. I think it was more loose than that. But at the same time, what we saw, groups like George Soros, Open Society Foundations, dark money networks like the Tides foundation, like the institutions that worked with Arabella Advisors, which now has been so discredited that they renamed it and tried to pull out. They've changed their name and shifted things. It's crazy. The nonprofits are still there, but the left Stark Money Network fed money into all of these organizations like Southern Poverty Law center, center for American Progress, Human Rights Campaign, and these groups sent their staff and ideas into the Biden administration. So when everybody was going crazy about Project 2025, I'm sitting here seeing like, hey, you guys know, the left had its project 2025 and it was extremely successful from their viewpoint. Like, if you look at the various policies in the Biden administration, open borders, you know, the forcing of transgender ideology down Americans throats. Where did these things come from? Oh, yeah, well, the Human Rights Campaign released its list of recommendations for the Biden administration and essentially they said, oh, you want us to jump? How high was about 75% of all their recommendations were implemented. And you go from one organization to another, which I do in the book. And you know, the woke to puss isn't. This isn't like the end of the discussion on this. There's more corruption and more to be revealed here. And that was why I was really grateful to Doge for revealing what USAID was, was funding. And I'd like to claim some credit. Naturally, I think the lion's share of credit is from the Arabella book that Scott Walter put out with Capital Research, with Capital Research Center. But I think his book, my book, our testimonies before Congress are one of the reasons why Arabella decided essentially to fold and then recreate itself, to try to rebrand and move away from this and why Bill Gates finally saw the light on climate. And of course, I don't trust Bill Gates as far as I could throw him. But he said the world is not ending because of climate change. And he pulled his money out of Arabella Advisors and their network of nonprofits. And these things are tremendous victories. So it's disheartening on the one hand to see how slow the administration has been when it comes to prosecuting Antifa when it comes to bringing those people to bear. Thankfully, we have some progress. We saw the arrests of the church invaders, which I think is really important step towards sanity in this country. But there's a lot more that needs to be done there. At the same time, this administration has been so aggressive in exposing the corruption that funds the left. And that is a tremendous service to all of us as Americans. And it's been weakening. I mean, I don't think the woke is gone. I think as soon as any Democrat. I mean, this is the thing. When you're voting, you're not just voting for the person at the top of the ticket. You're also voting for an administration that they'd bring in. So you may not always like President Trump, I get that. But if you like Harmeet Dhillon and everything she's doing at the Civil Rights Division and you think she's an improvement over Kristen Clark, which is like night and day difference, then you should think about that when you're voting. And that's part of the message of this book.
- [45:00]
Jack Fowler
Well, Tyler, thanks very much. Greatly appreciate you stepping in here and thanks to all our viewers and listeners and Victor Senza's love. And we will be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hansen In His Own Words. 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.
- [45:34]
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