The Merits of Joe Kent’s Resignation, the Democrats’ Anti-Israel Shift, and America’s Blue-State Decline | Victor Davis Hanson

Summary

Podcast Summary: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words | The Merits of Joe Kent’s Resignation, the Democrats’ Anti-Israel Shift, and America’s Blue-State Decline

Date: March 19, 2026
Host: Jack Fowler
Guest: Victor Davis Hanson

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Overview

In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson, acclaimed historian and commentator, offers his in-depth perspective on several contemporary issues shaping America: the resignation of national security official Joe Kent, the dramatic change in Democratic Party attitudes toward Israel, and the ongoing migration of corporations and people from blue states to red states. Drawing on historical context, personal anecdotes, and recent polls, Hanson analyzes the broader cultural and political shifts occurring in the United States today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Joe Kent’s Resignation: National Security and the Iran Question

• Context: Joe Kent, a Trump administration official and Green Beret veteran, resigned from his post over disagreement with U.S. military policy toward Iran (11:03).
  • Kent cited that the “war was started due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” (11:28)
  • Despite previously warning about Iran’s threats, he shifted to claim there was “no imminent threat” (11:51).
• Victor’s Analysis:
  • Consistency & Hypocrisy: “Did you support the Soleimani assassination and...was that an imminent threat?” (12:07)
  • History of Iranian Actions: Recaps Iran’s long record of attacks against Americans: Cobar Towers, U.S. embassy in Beirut, etc. (12:36)
  • Trump Doctrine: Trump’s approach is not isolationism: “He was a Jacksonian from the get-go, no better friend, no worse enemy. Don’t tread on me." (19:41)
  • On resigning principles: Victor questions why Kent joined an administration with a known stance if he opposed those policies (18:41).

Notable Quote:

“I do admire him. He was a Green Beret combat veteran… But I don’t understand ‘imminent threat.’” — Victor Davis Hanson (11:51)

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2. Strategic Assessment of the Iran Conflict

• Article Referenced: Mohanad Saloom’s piece in Al Jazeera claims the U.S.-Israel strategy is systematically degrading Iran’s power (22:03).
• Victor’s Commentary:
  • Saloom’s assessment is “absolutely correct” regarding the success in decimating Iranian infrastructure in a short period (23:53).
  • The Qatari perspective (via Al Jazeera) only shifted to praise U.S.–Israeli action after Iran threatened broader regional interests (25:00).
  • Victor notes the region’s rulers fear Iran will destabilize the entire Gulf, hence the sudden appreciation for U.S. military effectiveness.

Notable Quote:

“If you and I had this conversation three weeks ago… and I said to you, Jack, I think Trump’s going to go into Iran… and do all that in two weeks… you’d have said, man, what are you, just nutty, Victor?” — Victor Davis Hanson (23:53)

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3. Democratic Party: The Dramatic Shift Against Israel

• Poll Results: Dramatic fall in Democratic support for Israel—now nearly even split between support for Israel and Palestinians (NBC News poll, 29:45).
• Victor’s Analysis:
  • Predicts that major Jewish Americans won’t have a future on the national Democratic ticket due to rising anti-Semitism (31:10).
  • The party now “favors a terrorist organization [Hamas] over a constitutional government.”
  • Broader implications for national politics, especially regarding Jewish politicians and moderates.
  • Cites the fascination of parts of the right with leftist anti-Israel narratives as “strange alliances” (33:10).

Notable Quotes:

“If you’re a Jewish American and you want to be on the national ticket, I don’t think you’re going to make it.” — Victor Davis Hanson (31:10)
“That’s what the party is today. They favor a terrorist organization … over a constitutional government.” (31:22)

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4. America’s Shifting Alliances & The Role of Israel

• Allied Priorities:
  • Israel is considered the primary and most reliable U.S. ally, especially militarily in the current global landscape (41:35).
  • “They know how to fight. They’re masters of military technology, they’re pro-American and they understand what existential wars are about.” (41:35)
  • Discussion about changing relationships with Canada and Europe, noting a decline in genuine partnership and contribution (43:19).

Notable Quote:

“Israel is this little country with 10 plus million people... best pilots except for ours...” (41:35)

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5. Blue-State Decline and the Red-State Surge

• Corporate Migration: Major corporations and professionals are leaving high-tax, progressive states for red states (51:58).

  • Yamaha, ExxonMobil, possibly Starbucks relocating.

• Consequences:

  • Looming budget crises in blue states from loss of tax base (52:03).
  • Self-selection reminiscent of pre-Civil War America: migration reinforcing polarization (52:10).

• Victor Observes:

  • Blue states prefer to increase taxes instead of reforming, driving out their most productive citizens.
  • Growth of “two Americas” with incompatible legal and moral structures.
  • Possible negative outcomes: further polarization, potential crisis like “Bleeding Kansas” in the 1850s (56:19).

Notable Quote:

“One model works and one doesn’t … It’s not sustainable.” (56:16)

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6. Assimilation, Immigration, and the Cultural Crisis

• Victor’s Article Referenced: “Our New Ungracious Immigrants” (59:15).

• Key Points:

  • Assimilation is failing, both among new immigrants and native-born Americans.
  • Systemic DEI policies, lack of accountability, and elites excusing anti-American actions fuel both crime and rejection of American values (60:15).
  • Examples: Terrorist attacks by naturalized citizens, “restorative justice” approaches reducing consequences for horrific crimes.
  • Cultural self-loathing among young, educated Americans (“white liberal girls…do they like America? No, they hate America. They’ve been running the education system.” (64:29))

• Political/Media Class: Critiques figures like Ilhan Omar and John Kerry for undermining U.S. interests.

Notable Quotes:

“If you kill a cop, you should have been executed yourself. But there’s no capital punishment in New York. Okay? Life in prison. There’s no life in prison anymore, even for a cop killer.” (68:15)
“We asked nothing of the Dearborn community…protesting on behalf of Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran.” (63:48)

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7. Education, Universities, and the Well-Spring of Radicalism

• Source of the Crisis:
  • Hanson argues universities are the “DNA” behind progressive cultural drift, providing the intellectual foundation for radicalism in media, corporations, and public education (74:28).
• Generational disconnect: Personal anecdotes about pride in heritage and familial self-reliance versus new entitlement culture (76:43).

Notable Quote:

“They can take any farm kid from the San Joaquin Valley and turn him into a communist in a year, right?” (74:28)

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8. Memorable Anecdotes and Cultural Commentary

• Family Stories: Victor discusses his grandfather’s experience in WWI, local California history, and the Swedish-Irish heritage.
• School & Catholic Memories: Entertaining recollections about being a Protestant in a largely Catholic grammar school, debates over the color of devils, St. Patrick’s Day vs. St. Joseph’s Day, and more (77:04-79:42).
• Listener Comments: Closing appreciation for listener letters, sharing encouragement during his recent health crisis (83:02).

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Joe Kent’s Resignation/Iran Discussion: 11:03–20:29
• Strategic Assessment of the Iran Conflict / Al Jazeera Article: 22:03–29:02
• Democratic Shift on Israel: 29:45–41:20
• International Allies – Israel & Others: 41:32–48:17
• Corporate Migration and Blue State Decline: 51:58–59:15
• Assimilation and Cultural Crisis: 60:15–68:15
• Education and University Radicalism: 74:28–75:13
• Personal and Listener Anecdotes: 76:43–84:57

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Notable Quotes (Speaker | Timestamp)

• “Did you support the Soleimani assassination and...was that an imminent threat?” — Victor (12:07)
• “He was a Jacksonian from the get-go, no better friend, no worse enemy. Don’t tread on me." — Victor (19:41)
• “If you’re a Jewish American and you want to be on the national ticket, I don’t think you’re going to make it.” — Victor (31:10)
• “Israel is this little country with 10 plus million people...best pilots except for ours...” — Victor (41:35)
• “One model works and one doesn’t … It’s not sustainable.” — Victor (56:16)
• “They can take any farm kid from the San Joaquin Valley and turn him into a communist in a year, right?” — Victor (74:28)

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Tone and Style

Throughout, Victor mixes sober historical reflection with biting sarcasm and anecdotal wit, offering both grave warnings about current trends and a touch of wry humor drawn from family, regional, and cultural experience.

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Conclusion

The episode offers an expansive, yet consistently sharp critique of America’s present trajectory, defined by global dangers, political realignments, internal cultural fragmentation, and the foibles of both leadership and citizenship. Victor Davis Hanson’s unique blend of classical perspective, contemporary analysis, and personal storytelling makes this a rich, engaging listen for those seeking historical insights into today’s most pressing issues.

Transcript

[A]

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Okie dokie.

[B]

Let's rock and roll. And hello ladies. Hello gentlemen. Welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in His own Words on the Daily Signal Network. I'm Jack Fowler, the host, but you're here to get wisdom from Victor Davis Hansen, who is the Martin and Ely Anderson senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Duane and Marsha Busky, distinguished fellow in History at Hillsdale College. He's a, I forget, a senior contributor to the Daily Signal and he's got a website, the Blade of perseus. Go to VictorHansen.com, check it out. Subscribe, 65 bucks a year.

[A]

It's.

[B]

Come on, you got it.

[A]

Do it.

[B]

We are recording on Tuesday, March 17th, which is St. Patrick's Day. This episode though is up on Thursday, March 19th. Victor, that's St. Joseph's Day. Later on the show, we don't wanna get too religious up front.

[A]

I'll tell you, we had a very controversial conversation about the spate of what Joe Biden would call Ultra Maga, converts to Catholicism. So I think we should leave that topic alone.

[B]

We'll leave it alone. I do have to apologize for something, but we'll do that at the end. Nobody's here to listen to me.

[A]

They're here to listen to. My wife is a Catholic and my grandmother was. She was supposedly Swedish, but she was outed. My grandfather who was Swedish as an Irish Catholic and my grandfather married her. My Swedish grandfather, you know what they did to him? They kicked him out of the Kingsburg. That's a Swedish town we've referenced before. They kicked him out of the Kingsburg Masonic Lodge in 19. I think it was 1913 or 14.

[B]

Well back then. I think it's still maybe applicable now. But you are not supposed to be Catholic and a Mason and it may have been excommunicable or anathema at one time.

[A]

He went to World War I when he was 20 some 6 and he got his lungs, this is kind of germane to me. The bottom half of his lungs, on both sides, the bottom loads were destroyed by phosphine and mustard gas. And he was a lifelong. He was a wonderful man. And I said to him once, there's a beautiful Lutheran church in Kingsburg. It's just stunning. And his father and others helped fund it. His father came. He was impregnated in Sweden and delivered in Chicago on the way to Kingsburg. So, anyway, getting off the topic, but very quickly, he said to me, I said, how come? Because his wife, my grandmother, died before I was born. Cancer, of course, in my family. But any case, I asked him once. I was 15 when he died, but I was kind of an obnoxious wannabe, know it all. So I said, well, wasn't Grandma a Catholic? Yeah, she was. She was a Catholic. And let me tell you something about the Catholics. You said, I had my favorite horse. And three nuns were driving to the Catholic Church, and the horse was just minding his own business. Dirt road out in the middle of the road. Yeah, obey it. And they hit him. And I walked in and I said, oh, my God, we take him to the vet. No, we got to get to church. No, we get the mass. This is us. And so they left my horse dead on the side of the road and wounded. And then they went to the Mass. And I said, grandpa Frank, you've told me that story like 25 times. They had to get to Mass. They had to get to Mass. He made his living breaking horses. Breaker of horses. Like Hector. He was Hector in the Iliad. Hector, breaker of horses.

[B]

Was he in the trenches?

[A]

He was in the 91st evergreen or pine Tree Division. I have his helmet in there. There. It's still got his. I have his helmet and his gas mask. And my brother, my twin brother, has his 3040 Krag training gun. He was a teamster because he would break horses. And he was a fabulous horse breaker and teamster. That's how he made his living. And he went over and African American troops were logistical. They weren't allowed. You know, they're segregated. And he. He trained them. And he had a very high regard for African American rural farmers because he said they were very good teamsters. I remember he said that to me. And then all of a sudden, the Meuse Argonne offensive, and they drafted everybody. I don't mean drafted, but they transferred everybody in the logistical corps. And he went and he had a Lewis machine gun, I guess, or the American version of it. And he was in the offensive. And I talked to him when I was a kid. My father said, go talk to your grandfather. He had it rougher than I did. My dad flew, you know, 40 missions on a B29, pretty rough. And he said, I got so tired of shooting 70 year old Germans and 15 year old Germans. They were all running. That was the spring offensive. And he said we just chased them and we chased them them and we chased him. And then he got ahead of his unit and they had a counterattack and he and four or five people were trapped and they were gassed and they found some type of cow or they were starving, they ate it and it had gas in it and they swallowed it and it vomited and the gas destroyed their esophagus and part of their trachea and lungs. And he spent. The war was over November 11. And he spent entire year in a Brussels hospital. And he loved the Belgian people and he loved. He. I don't know how he knew, but he knew German or at least he was a translator of Swedish and German. He knew two languages. I don't know how he did that. But he loved the Germans and he loved the prisoners. After he got out of the hospital, post war they had people, they were still repatriating and he was assigned to, I don't know, talk to them or something or. And he said he loved the Belgian but not the French. Said I think we were fighting the wrong people. He was a wonderful guy. I don't know how he made a living. He was disabled his whole life gives me inspiration. If I can get through this lung thing and lost half my lung, I think myself. Well, your grandfather, you saw him break a stallion when he was 76 years old with two half lungs and jump on it bareback and ride. I met Slim Pickens there at his house. I mean at his little 40 acres. He was a rodeo clown when he was young. He was Swedish too.

[B]

You mentioned that.

[A]

Yeah, my grandfather really liked him.

[B]

Yeah, of course we won't talk about

[A]

that wasn't his real name. I'll remember his real people in Kingsburg. If they're listening, they'll know his real name. He moved out of Kingsburg and then came back for a while. Kingsburg had a lot of very famous people. Slim Pickens, but also Rafer Johnson.

[B]

Oh, the, the Olympian.

[A]

The Olympian. And his brother Jim Johnson, the 49er. They were both Kingsburg High School. Well, there's a lot of very talented people in the San Joaquin Valley. Trust me, just.

[B]

Even in just, just in Selma alone,

[A]

Brother Antoninus the Catholic monk famous William Everson. He came out here and my grandfather said that he used to hire William Everson. He was very tall and he was a very good peach tree thinner with a stick. When he was a young man, I met him. He was a professor at UC Santa Cruz. And I went up to him and I said, did you remember Rhys Davis? He hired you. My grandfather, he was very famous. Then he said, he's a very honest man. I hope you're as honest as he is. So not all farmers are honest, but he paid me every cent he owed me and he gave me a bonus of a full tank of gas. Okay, once more.

[B]

Viva Grandpa. And I hope brother didn't hit any horses as he was going to Mass.

[A]

All right, Victor, we've got to talk about Joe. Ken, we got to get back to the real world and shut Victor up.

[B]

Yeah, no, look, this is lovely. We're going to talk about Joe Kent, the Trump administration official who just, um, quit. What else? We have some polling. Oh, we got a ton of things.

[A]

We'll.

[B]

We'll get started with all that when we come back from these important messages. If you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen, you might enjoy the Daily Signals flagship show. The Tony Kennett cast the same common sense perspectives you love. Weekdays at 7pm Eastern. And unlike some of the other evening

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shows, we work up until showtime to bring you the latest breaking news, analysis

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and good old American sarcasm.

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Thom Tillis I'm pretty sure might have been useful at one time as a doorstop.

[B]

Find the Tony Kenneth cast on YouTube, X radio TV or wherever you get your podcasts. We are back with Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Happy St. Joseph's Day. Whatever you choose to celebrate, if both. So, Victor, here's the news. I put the damn darn thing. I can't say damn. That's what you say on other podcasts.

[A]

Let's not get into these feuds that are going on among our friends and rights. They're using a vocabulary that should be reserved for the opposition. Yeah,

[B]

locker room hate is spilling out in broad daylight. Here's counterterrorism official Joe Kent. Previously argued he quit. He stepped down. Previously argued Iran was a threat to the usa. So he resigned from his national security post over opposition to military action against Iran. Follows earlier public statements in which he warned about threats posed by the country and supported striking its ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities. In announcing his resignation, Kent said Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and said the war was started, quote, due to pressure from Israel and it's powerful American lobby.

[A]

I do admire him. He was a Green Beret combat veteran. He worked for Tulsi Gabbert. So I don't know what her attitude, because she has made it very clear she doesn't believe in forever wars. This is not a forever war. But I don't understand imminent threat. So what I would ask, with all due respect to Joe Kent, is would you have supported a. Did you support the Soleimani assassination and we. Was that an imminent threat? I think it was, but there was no precluding. They just saw him there and they knew that he had blood on his hands. When? Well, what? Almost a decade earlier, more than a decade, when he was responsible for the shaped charge shipments. He came up with the idea, I think that killed, they say 600Americans. People in the military will tell you, 2,000 and more wounded. Should we have hit them then? Should we hit them? When they organized the Tanzania, Clinton didn't go after Iran. Tanzania and Kenya. How about, I don't know, Cobar Towers? Those people were organized and funded probably by Iran. How about the embassy In Beirut, the 241 people in the barracks? So they've done this. It's not that. I don't know what imminent. They've just been doing it and doing it and doing it and they'll continue to do it. And at some point, every president said, they're not going to get a bomb on my watch. And they get more missiles and get closer to the bomb. And finally one president said, you know, I'm done with them, I will negotiate with them, but they won't want to negotiate. So all he said was just don't use the missiles, don't build the missiles and don't get a bomb and just live peacefully. Just be like Dubai or the UAE or Kuwait. They have militaries that protect themselves, but they're not trying to be aggressive aggressive and take over the Middle east with an ideology. And they said, nope, not going to do it. And so Trump said, okay, and we're in, I don't know what, 16 days, 17 days. We've tragically lost 14 people. 13. 13. And I understand we're spending a couple of billion dollars a day, but in the long history of warfare, if Trump is able to, as I said earlier, there's three outcomes. There's a Venezuela solution, a strong person comes in and works with us and gets rid of the theocracy and may or may not transition. And then there's the popular uprising, the most desirable, where you so Waste their assets. And now we're doing tactical strikes on individual Republican Guard checkpoints and things. We just killed Laranjani. His daughter, remember, was a professor at Emory. They hate us so much, and we think they were so decadent that they send their children to be educated and then hope they can be professors at our schools. And the third is that you might as well talk about that in a larger context. The third is that they do so much damage that they feel that they have neutered around for a decade. That is not a very enviable choice, in my opinion. We're getting very close, I think, to pushing them over the ledge and letting. We're just wiping out Israel, is wiping out the command and control. And we are pretty much destroying their assemblies, factories, naval, their military assets. And at some point, I think the people will take it in their own hands, especially if something simultaneously happens in Cuba. So I think would be very dangerous to stop now is what I'm suggesting.

[B]

Well, likewise, Victor. Maybe not likewise. Would it have been dangerous not to do anything at all?

[A]

They were.

[B]

I still cannot get my arms around the thought that sooner or later. And if it's either. That's true, it will be sooner or will be later, but it will be. They would have done something catastrophic to

[A]

the U.S. they reached their apex of influence and power during the Biden years. They basically ran the Red Sea. They took their transport planes and they supplied the Houthis with thousands of missiles and drones. And the Houthis under Biden controlled the Red Sea. He didn't do anything. They attacked. I don't know what the. I fear 300. They attacked two to 300American installations in Syria and Iraq. The Iranians, through their proxies. We didn't even do anything. And everybody's looked, put their finger in the wind and said, they are the strong people and the Americans will be out soon. Let's not get near the Americans. The Abraham's Accord stopped. And then Hezbollah bragged that they had 200,000. I don't know if that was true. Missiles and rockets. And they were going to have a ring of fire. They said it every week. We're going to have a ring of fire. We're going to blast them on the. And the Houthis will come across the desert. And then Hamas, they thought they had three Iranian proxies, plus these people in Syria and Iraq. And everybody in the Arab world was terrified. And Joe Biden said, please, please, please get back in the Iran deal. We have to. No, we're not going to do it. Okay, well if you don't want to get back in the Iran deal, then we're going to lift all the sanctions. How is that? And let you make them another hundred billion dollars on oil. That's what we're going to do to you. And that's what he did. And that was their highest point of influence. And they're 40 at that time, 43, 44, 45 year history. And they had Chinese and Russian. China was in knee deep in Iran, Russia was running Syria and North Korea was supplying all of the nuclear technology via China and there was no stopping it. And so we knew what it was going to be. And Trump came in and he tried the 10 days that he was raised, did the 10 day strikes, he did the 24 hour stuff when he thought he had nuclearized them, he thought he sent him a signal and don't continue. We set you back on your nuclear. And what did they do? They shifted their attention to building another thousand missile ballistic missiles.

[B]

Well, when the, even the Biden administration says don't, don't has to have a

[A]

follow up, I don't know what Kent means when he's. They tried to kill Trump, they tried to kill Pompeo, they put a hit out on John Bolton, they tried to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington D.C. this is aside from what they're doing. They just killed 30,000 people. They butchered them. And we were told that there was genocide and all this going on in Gaza was a war zone. This wasn't a war zone. They just took and went in and slaughtered their own people. So there was a lot, there was a lot of provocations and I don't see why a person joins an administration when you know what the administration is going to do. Because the Internet as we're reminded now Jack, is awash with clips of Donald Trump going back to have you seen these things?

[B]

I have.

[A]

30 years we've got to take out. Right at 1980 he should have taken out Iran after the hostages. You got to take Carg Island. He's been saying it for years and he was never a MAGA isolationist. He never said that. He said forever wars that were fought stupidly. He was a Jacksonian from the get go. No better friend, no worse enemy. Don't tread on me. We don't want to go in there. But you keep pushing it, pushing it. Soleimani, isis, Baghdadi, keep pushing it, keep cutting people's heads off, keep killing Americans, we're going to hit you and then we're going to say make you great. Bye. See you, wouldn't want to be you. And we don't want to get on an endless ground war. That was what he always said he was going to to do. I don't understand it.

[B]

Let me get your take in a second on some of the ongoing analysis, but first I want to tell our listeners and viewers about Hillsdale College's Learn Like Charlie campaign. Until his untimely and tragic death, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a longtime friend and student of Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arne. Charlie understood that learning shapes character, creates courage and changes your life. And this is true for every American. But before he could lead, Charlie Kirk learned. Though Charlie never earned a college degree, he was relentless in his pursuit of the truth. With the help of Hillsdale College, he studied the classics, the American founding, and the Bible through Hillsdale College's free online courses. These are real courses taught by actual Hillsdale professors. The great Victor Davis Hansen, I think, has two or three of such courses. Charlie's faith, courage and character were shaped by the things that he studied and the free online courses he took with Hillsdale College. Start right now with Hillsdale College's brand new course on logic and rhetoric. Learn from real Hillsdale College professors how to speak masterfully and make a powerful point and how clear thinking leads to better decision making and more effective speech. Go to Hillsdale. Edu VDH to enroll. It's totally free. Pick up the mic, Carry it forward. Learn Like Charlie. Start right now at Hillsdale. Edu vdh. And we thank the good people from Hillsdale College for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. At the risk of our listeners having to hear. Continue to hear my voice. Victor, I want to get your take on this piece by Mohanad Saloom. It's in Al Jazeera. The headline is the US Israeli strategy against Iran is working, and here's why. So this is what he writes. Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the dominant narrative has settled into a comfortable groove. The United States and Israel stumbled into a war without a plan. Iran is retaliating. Across the region, oil prices are surging. The world is facing another Middle Eastern quagmire. US Senators are Call it a blunder. Cable news has tallied the crises. Commentators are now warning of a long war. The chorus is loud and in some respects, understandable. War is ugly, and this one has imposed real costs on millions of people across the Middle east, including the city I live in. This is I being Mohanad Saloon. But this narrative is wrong. Not because the costs are imaginary. But because the critics are measuring the wrong things, they're cataloging the price of the campaign while ignoring the strategic ledger. Final paragraph here. When you look at what has actually happened to Iran's principal instruments of power, its ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear infrastructure, air defenses, its navy, its proxy command architecture, the picture is not one of US Failure. It is one of systematic phase degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades. Boy, a nice wrap up there to me. What's your take on that?

[A]

Well, two things. The first, he's absolutely correct. If you and I had this conversation three weeks ago and I said to you, jack, I think Trump's going to go into Iran and I have a prediction to make, and you'd say, well, what is that? I'd say in the first two weeks, he's going to kill Khamenei himself and Lauren, Johnny, and the Soleimani that is running the thuggish version of the Revolutionary Guard. And he's going to get rid of most of the military commanders. He's going to destroy their entire air force, all of their missile defense, along with Israel. They're going to make it almost impossible for an Iranian leader to show his face because he'll be dead. And they're going to destroy his navy, and they're going to destroy most of the remaining nuclear project and the, not just the 3,000 missiles and say, 8 or 9,000 drones, but the subterranean fabrication assembly plants. He's going to do all that. Tragically, we're going to lose 13 people, and that's going to be the first two weeks work. And then you would have said, man, what are you, just nutty, Victor? You can't go into Iran and take on a country of 90 million people and do all that in two weeks and not suffer. That's what we suffered in one afternoon in Iraq or Afghanistan. So it was pretty. He's right. But the question is more interesting. Why is he writing that? Because he lives and writes and, and breathes Al Jazeera, which is a construct of the Qatari government, which is a triangulate. It's right across the Gulf from Iran, and its basic attitude frustrates Americans because they've got all this money and they give it American universities and they triangulate. They hate Israel, they don't like the United States, but they're terrified, as is Kuwait, as is Saudi, as is Emirate, all of them, Oman, because they're right next to this lunatic Shia regime that hates Sunnis and hates their money and hates their success. So as long as, as Iran was, what's the word? Marketable, flexible, fluid. And they paid them off. Al Jazeera said, let's not have a fight. These are fellow Muslims. We get along with Iran. That would be very unwise because they know Iran would slaughter them and destroy them. I understand that. And they have oil to ship out. But as soon as the war started, this article would not have been written the first week. It's written after the second week because Iran decided not just to hit US Bases, but to destroy the oil income of Qatar and the Emirates and Oman, et cetera, et cetera, and their tourist potential. Hitting hotels, hitting airports, and then lying, as they always do, by saying, we're only going after American. So they're looking at this and they're thinking, take the finger in the wind. Who is winning right now? Oh, my gosh, these crazy Shia Persians are breaking their word. They're hitting this. They're going to destroy our economy. We can't get oil out. We don't have a pipeline like Saudi. This is terrible. And they've ruined our tourist industry. And we're, let's unleash Al Jazeera and we'll do this because we're afraid that the Jews in Israel and the United States might quit. And if they quit, we really like what they've done. We haven't praised them yet, but if they quit, they might not come back. We might get another Biden or Obama. So we've got to jump in and risk everything and praise them to the skies. Not on what they're doing, but how they are doing, how brilliant it is, how successful. They're just almost there. If they just push a little bit, they can destroy this menace and overthrow that government and then we're safe. And that's what they're doing now. I don't blame them, but that's what they're doing. It happens to be true. But the truth never bothered the Qataris. They're allowing the truth to be expressed because they think there's a good chance now that Iran could actually fall. If, if, if another two or three weeks, the Americans, you know, increased, increase the stakes and they don't leave. But if they leave, they're terrified, so they don't want them to leave. And that's what that article is saying. Why would you leave? You're very successful. Don't listen to people. You've been doing a great job. Americans and Israel just keep doing it and protect us and get rid of that menace and then maybe we'll be friends and not triangulate and go behind your back and pay people off and unleash Alzira on you. And as far as the Palestinians, we never cared about the Palestinians. They were just useful. So you know what? Forget about the Palestinian. They're Iranian proxies.

[B]

You know, who cares about Palestinians or our Democrat Party voters? And we're going to get your take on that.

[A]

Victor.

[B]

There's a new poll out. We'll get your take on that and more when we come back from these important messages.

[A]

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.

[B]

We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in His Own words, recording on March 17th. This episode is up on Thursday the 19th, previously headlined this is an NBC News poll. Israel's standing plummets among Democrats, fueling primaries on the left. American voters feelings on Israel and Palestine territories have shifted dramatically in recent years, and a sea change is transforming the Democratic Party and shaping its primaries. A new NBC News poll underscores the depths of the shift. More registered voters view neg. You view Israel negatively than positively, a change from a few years ago. The change has been especially pronounced among independents and Democrats, fueling divided congressional primaries in 2026 and potentially shaping the party's 2028 presidential contest. When asked whether their sympathies lie more with Israel or Palestinians, 40% of registered voters say they side more with the Israelis, while 39% with Palestinians. This split stood at 45 for Israel and 13% for Palestinians. When NBC conducted this poll, that was

[A]

your last one is in reference to Democrats.

[B]

Well, actually, actually, this by this it's everybody.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I thought.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Well, I think I said that a couple of times that just face the reality. If you're a Jewish American and you want to be on the national ticket, I don't think you're going to make it. I don't think you'll ever see a Joel Lieberman run as vice president again. Josh Shapiro has no future in an anti Semitic party. He can be as moderate as he wants. He can try to say he's a Mike Dukakis technocrat. He can. He's not going to make it. He's right in the middle of an anti Semitic party. And I don't think you'll see any major Jewish American. And Chuck Schumer thinks he's cute and he can deal with these crazy socialists in his party that are anti Semitic and hate Israel. He's never going to be reelected. He can't be reelected. And that state, as far as the Democrats belong to AOC and Mondamen. And they hate him. They hate him because he's Jewish, and they hate him because he's not quite as crazy as they are. So that's what the party is today. They favor a terrorist organization that originally, until recently and before they tried to camel in their constitution, said they wanted to destroy the Jewish state that was Hamas over a constitutional government, parliamentary government, freedom. Any of those people go to the Middle east and they say, I'm driving around Jordan, we're going to go look at Lebanon. Oh, where should we stay tonight? Should we have a choice between staying in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq? Oh, why don't we stay at the King David in Israel? So everybody knows that it's an oasis of freedom and protection and security, constitutionality and everything around it is an autocracy and a nightmare. And that's who the Democrats like now. And they, they're kind of weird. They, it's kind of like the proverbial roll the ball up the hill. And they've tried so hard to legitimize all these people who kill Jews and hate Israel, and now they're at the very top of the mountain and they're just letting it roll down. Gravity on the other side. And it is picking up momentum and it's got, it's affected a lot of them, Republican side, too, because all of a sudden, people that you and I know that this summer praised the Trump strike or now they're defecting. And Kent didn't really have to say. All he had to say is I really. All he had to say was, I tried to run for Congress twice. I came close. I really appreciate what Donald Trump did. He went and endorsed me. He made sure that I had help from the national party. I served with the distinction and honor and Director of National Intelligence. But we have just a policy disagreement. But that does not. Instead, he had to say that basically Donald Trump was a pawn of Israel. And that tells me that he thought that there was some currency to be had. And so all these people now are looking. And there's another motivation that we haven't talked about, Jack, when, let's say, Tucker. If you look at the people that Tucker's had on his show or that he's highlighted or promoted I think 30% of them you would call leftist. You know what I mean? And when you're on the right, and Candace, too is popular among many circles on the left, when you're on the right and you start insidiously and continuously bringing up Israel and dual loyalty, all of that, people on the left say, well, there's two nice things I like about this. One, they're useful idiots in my view because even though I don't like them, they're useful in splitting apart my enemies. But number two, they kind of have been persuaded by us and we're going to give them avenues. We're going to put guests on their shows, we're going to let them talk to people on the left. And a lot of the people in the Arab community love these people now in the radical Arab community. So if you're a MAGA person and you decide that you're going to come out as a person who believes that Israel pulls the strings and the United States controls the Trump administration and Jews in America have due loyalties and they're conspiratorial, you know that there's going to be people in the New York Times, Washington Post, npr, pbs, abc, cbs, cnn, Mississippi, all those people campuses, they're going to like you. If Tucker gave a talk at Columbia, I don't think they'd storm the doors as they would nine months ago. No, but if a pro lifer came, they'd, oh my gosh. You know, it's very strange, just analytically, it's very strange to watch this thing. And it gets back to Donald Trump and when I said that he has about two or three. We're at a, we're at a crisis of wills right now. Iran is saying we are rope a dope strategy. We don't have high rises. We don't have your decadent western lifestyles. We can live with nothing and you can turn our country into rubble. But we'll still be here because we shoot people, we rape people, we put the fear of God into our own people. And we like deaf and death better than life and you like life better than death. And that's the difference. And we are saying, Trump saying, well, we'll see about that. We're going to break you and let the people vent their wrath at what you've done to them for 47 years. But I have constraints. Number one, the midterms. If we lose, I'm just imagining that I'm Trump now. If I'm Trump and I lose the midterms, I'm going to be impeached, which will derail my whole last two years. That's not. They're going to get every subpoena. They're going to go after Don Jr, Eric, all the people around them, they're going to bring them in and saying they're profiting cryptocurrency, defense contracts, Middle East. That's going to be. That's going to make the Hunter Biden circus look amateur. What they're going to do to those guys. And then in addition, there's going to be no legislation. Trump will be impeached if he loses the midterm. Second thing, if gas and oil, I mean, nobody says right now gas is still cheaper than at the high point of the Biden administration when nobody yelled at Biden. But it is. It's gone up about 50 or 60 cents. But if it continues to go, there's going to be pressure for Trump to stop because of the economy. The thing that will save him in the midterms are two things. If he can get out of Iran and see that government either so mauled that it's toppling or it's actually toppled, plus a quiet revolution in Cuba where Cuban Americans basically take over the country again and Venezuela, and then you get the economy going, he will survive the midterm. That's number two. That's that constraint. So he's got to get the Straits of Hormuz open, he's got to get the oil moving. He's got to get. And then he's got the MAGA schism. He's got to get everybody united for the midterms and for the next his successor. And you cannot win in this 50, 50 nation unless you get everybody. But if you get everybody on the same team, you've got some problems. There's a lot of people on your team believe that Nick Fuentes isn't that bad of a guy. And so you've got all these pressures and then you've got the Europeans and all the triangulators, the Allies and Europe, as we saw said, you see Stormer, what do you say? We are going to watch this situation closely and protect our interest in Cyprus. But this is not our war. It's not your war. It was not our war during The Falklands in 82, when you went halfway across the world to maintain British supremacy and the reputation of the British Navy. Over what, Mr. Shermer, are you British trying to tell me the Falklands were more strategically necessary to the world than Iran was? Because you went to war with that and you had Nuclear sub tipped torpedoes and rockets on your submarine and you were out of fuel and we gave you 2 million gallons of fuel that saved you. And then we gave you the most sophisticated intelligent satellite intelligence that told you where every Argentine asset was. And then we gave a Marine carrier, we put it on ready and said, if you lose one of your carriers, this is yours, take it. We gave you everything. And that really hurt our interest in Latin America because we were trying to get the Soviets out of there and restore the Reagan version of the Monroe Doctrine and you repay us and say, this is not our war. Trump was right about that when he said, you know, I'm getting sick of NATO and then Spain kicks us out and then all of a sudden Trump should say to them, well, Ukraine, I guess that's your war, huh? It's your war. You negotiate with Putin, you do that, you rearm, do all that. He's not going to do that. He's going to go and try to help NATO as he should, and he's trying to recreate deterrence and scream and yell at them so that they defend themselves. But gosh,

[B]

if you're picking sides, it's a schoolyard, it's going to be a basketball game and the nations of the world are playing and America's picking its first teammate. Who is it picking?

[A]

Who?

[B]

Yeah, would it be Israel?

[A]

Yes, I was just going to say it. Yeah. Israel is this little country with 10 plus million people. It has 300 front line fighter planes, best pilots except for ours, or maybe comparable to ours in the world. They've got more fighters in Germany, they got more fighters in Italy, they got more jets fighters than does France. They got more jet fighters than Britain. They have a better army than any of those four countries. They know how to fight. They're masters of military technology, they're pro American and they understand what existential wars are about. And sometimes they don't like what we do. And this is what really gets me when people on the right say that they engineered the Iraq war of 2003. They didn't want that war. They kept saying, if you want to win a war, go after Iran. Saddam is not our mortal enemy compared to the Iranians. But the point is, when they disagreed with us, they didn't really grandstand. If you said that America was at war with Iran and Israel did not want to participate, believe me, the Israelis would secretly, stealthily allow us to use their bases and stuff like that. That so, yeah, that's our ally. And then we have some good friends like Argentina temporarily And we have. The Japanese are good. I think the Australians, if they get a conservative government, are very good. And the South Koreans can be good if they have a conservative government.

[B]

Yeah, the days of. I mean, who would have thought? The days went. Britain and Canada were.

[A]

That's another thing. If I could rant just for a second. It's your show. Rant all. We have this myth that we were just alike and we were friends. And then Trump came and destroyed the Canadian American special relationship. If you look at what Canada's been doing, it didn't act like an ally or a friend. It really didn't. It was critical. It had a EU criticism like attack on the United States. It was running up $61 billion in surplus trade in a supposedly idealistic free trade zone. Kind of a post NAFTA thing. We're not supposed to do that. There were what, 32 nations in NATO. It and Spain had the lowest contribution. It wouldn't even spend 2%. The Canadian attitude was, well, that's North American Treaty Organization. Well, it's mostly Europe and the United States represents us and we don't have a navy. They had the fourth largest navy. They were wonderful. In World War II they had no navy. They have no. They don't even have the F35s. They've reneged on that. Or they're not going to get them, or they can't get them. Who knows? And if we ask them to get ice cutters and help them defend the so called Northwest Passage or they already. They won't even do that. Now they've got. What was it this year? Our former colleagues at National Review pointed out they've had 83,000 euthanasia deaths.

[B]

One out of every five percent of everyone who dies in Canada dies from the MAID program.

[A]

And then you look at their health system. If you want a brain surgery, it's about a year wait. If you want what I had, if I was a Canadian right now and I said, I have a 7.3-centimeter ground glass opacity with a 3-centimeter invasive tumor in the middle. Can I get it out? Yes, yes, of course you can. It'll be six months from now, I would have been dead. It's a warped system. Yeah, it is. And then you get the impression that one of the reasons they like euthanasia is a person comes in and says, I have stage four breast cancer. But I've heard about this immunotherapy in the United States that can give me two or three years. Is there any chance now, you know that would just be miserable. Why don't you just sit down here in this couch and just think all day about it and we'll save a million bucks and you won't have to go through the vomiting and the chemo or the immunotherapy reaction. That's what they're, that's the subtext of it. And then you get with the open border and then their immigration policy. I mean, truck driver who killed what, 16 people in Canada. Did you see his defense? He said that he didn't want to go back and be deported because his kid was three years old and would have to breathe Indian air. Your kid is breathing. 16 young kids are not breathing because of you. So everything about them has their end. Their. And I love Canadians. I know a lot of them, some of them in my family. But my point is they're indistinguishable from Europeans as far as their attitude toward us. It's condescending. It's sort of. Well, you're a rough, rowdy Roman legionnaire and we're a Greek philosopher and we'll tell you what you should do with that power, mostly because we are more strategically analytical than you are and that's how they act toward us. They don't pull their weight. They could. So I think why they hate Trump is not that he polarized them, that he took off this scab and he tore it off and he said this is a scab but you don't know what's underneath it. Once you understand euthanasia and once you understand their immigration policy and once you understand their attitude toward NATO and once you understand their trade surpluses and once you, you understand all of their asymmetrical laws and once you see this state sponsored anti Americanism, you will be very upset and I'm going to expose it to you. They haven't had a normal man, prime anybody in government since Stephen Harper, who was a wonderful prime minister. I guess he was there, what, nine years longer? He was, he was a absolute world class leader. He was pro Israel, he was pro, he tried to rearm the best he could for NATO and then what do they do? You know, he, he was the last Canadian, put it that way, as I'm concerned, the last old Canadian of old Canada. And we're not going to see anybody like him.

[B]

Well, Victor, we're going to head south to America and even further south, some red states. But first, first for our viewers and our listeners, 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. Here's the historical truth. Every society that's pushed its currency beyond discipline eventually paid a price. The wise never waited for collapse. They prepared for the correction. And that's why so many thoughtful Americans, especially those nearing retirement, are in retirement. And we hope those who watch and listen to this show are reallocating part of their wealth into something that has outlasted every paper experiment in human history, physical gold not only as speculation but as insulation. The reputation here, Victor Davis Hansen, in his own words, matters to us. And that's why we're partnering with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability and an A plus rating for the Better Business Bureau. For years, they've guided Americans through transparent education and longstanding relationships building 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 or, like Victor, sitting out in the field in almond trees. So if you believe as we do, that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious. Call 8447-909191-84479, 09191 or visit protectwithvictor.com that's 8447-909191-84479, 09191 or Visit Protect with Victor.com History rewards those who take the long view, and we thank the very good people from Allegiance Goal for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. By the way, there's also Victor Davis Hanson in a Few Words, which is also supported, sponsored and published by the Daily Signal. Do check it out, Victor. I'm going to cram these headlines together just to get your take on it before we go to our final break. And then another topic, but no surprise, I think, to anyone who listens or watches the show, here's two headlines, one, both from the Daily Mail. Two more Wall street giants flee blue states as they head south. So it turns out that Yamaha Motor Corporation, which is based in Cypress, California, is moving to Kennesaw, Georgia, after nearly five decades. And Exxonm ExxonMobil, which is technically headquartered in New Jersey, is heading south to Texas. And then Another headline woke Seattle kills its golden goose as Starbucks is accused of plotting a huge office move to deep Tennessee. It's got office space there for several hundred. But the belief is that Starbucks is actually getting thousands of spaces now in Tennessee and is a precursor, it seems, to moving the whole damn operation. There's no proof that it's re. But why would a corporation stay in Seattle, in New Jersey, in New York, in Connecticut?

[A]

I have a really brilliant colleague at Hoover, Josh Rao. I think you know Josh.

[B]

I did, yeah, yeah.

[A]

He wasn't the head of the Trump economic advisors in the first term for a while. Yes, very prominent. And he wrote a very incisive article calibrating what California is going to lose in revenue by exiling these billionaires. And it's in the 20, 30, $40 billion range. It's scary, it's going to cost the state a lot of money. But you know what's happening is it's kind of reminding me of 1850s in the United States when the Missouri Compromise and all of these great compromises really made the situation worse because they created this self selection of settlers and places like Missouri especially. But every state that was a border, a potential border state, whether it was Kentucky or Missouri, or as Joe Biden bragged about his Delaware being a slave state, I think it was a border state, people started to self select to go try to move and change the ideological tempo of that particular region. So the south, people in the north who were sympathetic with slavery and there were a lot of were going south and the people in the south who knew that if you were a Republican you were doomed, were going northward. And this was over a 30 year period, it was getting more and more polarized. And what's happening in this country right now is in the blue states because they're rife with fraud and they will never ever prosecute the people involved. Partly because of dei, but partly because of, of their high in the Democratic party. They're broke. And their answer to that is not cut, cut, reform, reform, save, trim, but tax, tax, tax. So they're losing the billionaires and they're losing the upper middle class professionals, 300,000 of them in California. And it's just not a matter of money. When you, my wife and I were talking the other day, I went into a lab and I had an appointment and they said, you don't have a prescription. I said, I do have a prescription. She asked me my name and everything. So they wouldn't give me a blood test. It was pretty important blood test. And I Got back and I called the national office of this particular lab and they said, well, she used my middle name. It was in the computer. I was all ready. And all she had to do was just say, what? What? I gave her my driver's license. So she didn't even check. She just said, well, there's Victor Hansen. And I said, well, I'm Victor Davis Hansen. Maybe they. No, no, you can't go. Get out, basically. But what I'm trying to say is there's people at all levels in California that are incompetent. And that's because year after year after year, doctors, lawyers, engineers, technicians who are making 100 to 300. And they're not wealthy given the housing prices and cost here. They just say, I can't take it anymore. It's not just that they tax me. They hate my guts. The more they tax me, the more they revile me. These people are crazy. I'm leaving. I'm leaving Illinois, I'm leaving New York, I'm leaving Washington state. And they're going to places and places like Texas and Tennessee and Florida say, come on down. The more you come with all that capital, the less likely it is we're ever going to have an income tax tax and we're going to let you create more wealth. And the red states are getting more conservative and entrepreneurial and libertarian and free. And the blue states are. But the question is not that they're changing alone. The blue states, of course, are getting more socialist and communist and they'll start confiscating people's money, as Mondame will probably do pretty soon. He's already said he's going to tax white people more on their property, but.

[B]

Or they'll go after their 401ks or something.

[A]

They've already talked about that. And when I wrote the Dying Citizen, I read about four articles where people were saying, let's take some 401k money and give them Social Security credit, you know, at a bad deal. But the thing about it is, it's not just that they're changing, but one model works and one doesn't. And the problem is the more that the blue model is. Doesn't work, the more it doesn't work, it's impoverishing them. And the red states are getting wealthier and more successful. And so it's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. And I don't know either one of two things are going to happen. Either some blue state people are going to say, like in California, they're going to elect us you know, Steve Hilton or somebody, I don't know, they'll have to, they'll have to have a radical change but it wouldn't be enough because the legislature, it's gerrymandered or it's going to be like 1850s bleeding Kansas and bleeding Missouri and Kansas because they're not compatible systems. You're going to have judges in all of these blue districts that are going to interpret the law in ideological fashion. You're going to have strict constructionalists in the red state states. You're going to have the same thing with DA's. So if you're an American citizen and you go on a subway and you let somebody on fire or you rape a young minor and you happen to be an illegal, if you're in a blue state, you're not going to be punished much. If you're in a red state, you're going to be put away for a long time.

[B]

Can I tell you a headline here on that, just on that 20 year old Mohammed Bakari Shai, this is In Minnesota, Rochester, Minnesota gets 180 days in jail. He did go to jail. What did he do? He raped two girls under the age of nine.

[A]

You know what the headline would be? Confused immigrant bewildered by the intricacies of American popular culture may have erred in some ways and now is a victim of retributive justice. Yeah, you know, well that's what it is and it's not, it's not sustainable and I don't know how it will finally end. But I won't be here. But it's gonna, and you won't be here maybe being yet much younger than

[B]

I'll go out fighting.

[A]

But it's, it's getting scary. It's gonna cut families in half and there's going to be. California has 27% of the population was not born in the United States and there's no buddy like Gavin Newsom. He says celebrate diversity. He doesn't say this. This is an existential challenge, everybody. We've got people from all over the world, different languages, religions, but we have to unite them with one thing, English American culture and values. And we're going to have a K through 12 civic education. He's not going to do that.

[B]

Well, let's talk about that based off of a big piece you just wrote. And we'll do that Victor, when we come back from these final important messages. Hey folks, we're back. Victor Davis Hansen in his own words on the Daily Signal Network. I want to remind you again, Victor's website, the blade of Perseus. Victorhansen.com, where you can read this article that Victor wrote. It's titled Our New Ungracious Immigrants. Here's just one sentence. The question, the final irony. Why do so many criminals believe they can enter the US illegally and get away with murder? But Victor, given what you were just saying, why do so many Americans born here, born, bred, no question that they're Americans born, why do they hate America? The solution can't be e pluris unum if the existing Americans hate the country

[A]

they grew up in because they'd never been assimilated. So you had the two Afghan and Turkish Americans who's second generation, their parents came from Turkey and Afghanistan and they know that if they make two IEDs and go to New York to kill a bunch of people, first of all, they don't think they're going to get much sentencing because they feel that somebody will say it's Islamophobic. And they absorbed in their school that they are a protected species under dei. And they know that when a Muslim shouts Allah Akbar then somebody is going to contextualize that and say it's not a hate crime and they're not going to serve something. And they said this is, I'm not being sarcastic or ironic when they did this, those two, they said they wanted to be more famous than the Boston Marathon bomber brothers, the Sardines. And they said that not just because they killed three in Boston and wounded hundreds, but because Rolling Stone put the surviving brother on that photo with photogenic like he was sexy, sexy right on the COVID And they know it because people in that community know that when Major Hassan at Fort Hood, who had given years of evidence that he hated the country that he was born in when his Palestinian parents were naturalized, when he yelled Allah Akbar and shot 13 dead of his own fellow soldiers and wounded, I guess it was 30 something, he knew that that would be contextualized. And what did the Obama administration do? And the Pentagon. There's no evidence, Jack, that this was a politically motivated terrorist act. And what did George Casey, a fine soldier, head of Chief of staff of the U.S. army. What did he say? Well, as bad as this tragedy is, it would be as equal a tragedy if this imperiled our diversity, equity inclusion program. No, it wouldn't. It would be a good reason to get rid of it and assimilate people. Amen. So that's the problem, that the message has gone out that you can be an opportunistic American. So if you're Mr. Laranjani. I should. Excuse me. The late Mr. Laranjani, the terrorist kingpin that was basically ruling Iran. And you hate the Great Satan so much, you send your daughter to the United States, and she's educated here. Of course, you're saying that every woman in Iran must have head coverings and can't be exposed. And you're sending your daughter to a place where it's the Great Satan, where there's pornography. But that's okay, because she's going to get a Western education and be prominent, and she may be a vital asset to the Iranian. And then she's hired. Who would ever hire her? They hired her at Emory University. She's the daughter of one of the most cutthroat persons who, right before he died, threatened to kill the President of the United States. He said, trump better be careful. We're going to kill him. And yet she's a professor for a while at Emory Medical School. And the answer is because she and her father sized up. Up Americans. They don't care. And there's people in the United States that hate the United States. And we asked nothing of the Dearborn community. So we had people from. And then we had that protest in your city, New York, where they were protesting right in the middle of the war on behalf of Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran.

[B]

Of course I agree with you.

[A]

Who wouldn't?

[B]

But I guess my desire is to put more attention on the people that hate America include Americans. Right. Which you've said is not all. These were all.

[A]

Jack, they were all Americans.

[B]

Well, true, but the white liberal girls who are rallying in hairs colored purple and tattoos galore, they were tweaking.

[A]

Give them credit. They were tweaking a ICE officer the other day. Very beautiful young women.

[B]

Yeah. Do they like America? No, they hate America also. And they've been running the education system,

[A]

how that works out in the real world, The Iranian surviving, if there are any surviving leaders say, you know what? Just keep it up. Just rope a dope a rope a dope. Because we've got a lot of allies over there, and they're going to put so much pressure on Trump. And they like us better. John Kerry likes us better. Remember that? He helped us when Trump was president the first time he was negotiating behind Trump's back. Come on, come on, come on. That's how they view it, as an s. And why wouldn't they? When we have a citizen, a naturalized citizen. So we get Ilian Omar, who comes over here, and her father was an elite, a Wealthy, crooked, corrupt general who was participating in the genocide perpetrated by the Somali government. She comes over here, she says she's surprised how trashy the United States is. She probably allegedly, supposedly purportedly married her brother. She never has since said, I didn't do that and I'm willing to take a DNA test and he will too to show we're not related. She won't do that. But she probably violated immigration law. Somehow she ended up with $30 million of network. I don't know how her sister was knee deep in the Somali welfare, extortion, fraud, whatever you want to call it. And she has said, let me think what she said. She said that the dictatorship in the United States elected government is just as bad as in Somalia, that we're one of the worst countries in the world. It's all about the Benjamin's baby, Benjamin Netanyahu and the hundred dollar bill, Benjamin Franklin and so on and so on. And she's the face of the new Democratic Party. She's an out and out anti Semite, she hates the United States and she probably came here. This is what I don't understand when I say she probably came here. Why did the Sarnap brothers come here? Why did she come here? Why did Rashida Tlaib's parents come here? Why did the person that killed that heroic ROTC instructor, why did he come from Sierra Leone here where his parents did? Why did he want to be a citizen? Why at the Old Dominion? Why did the person who rammed the car in Michigan, whose brother and the New York Times. Well, he did it because his brother. No, they were Hezbollah terrorists. Why would we allow a Hezbollah terrorist family member to come into this country? And why did we let this guy from Afghanistan's parents and the tur. What. Why do we do that and why do they do this? Because they think A, there's not going to be any consequence to it and B, there's half the country on the left is going to praise us for doing. And three, we're on the victimized, oppressed side of the binary and therefore we get special attention and deference and exemption. And that's how it works.

[B]

Lots of cash related to it.

[A]

If they just had one judge that says, okay, we found you guilty of putting two IEDs and I have sentenced you to 50 years with no parole. And then you had a governor of the state, I don't know if that would be a state or federal, say a federal crime. Then the federal, the. This person will never be commuted or pardoned. That would Be a deterrent. But they don't think that's going to happen. You know, they really don't.

[B]

New York, under Cuomo as governor, he created this terrible. He's talking about parole, this terrible parole board. And I think they have released 40 to 50 cop killers over the years. If you kill a cop, you should have been executed yourself. But there's no capital punishment in New York. Okay? Life in prison. There's no life in prison anymore, even for a cop killer.

[A]

Look at the. What was the name? Dicarlos Brown. He was let out. He killed the Ukrainian woman that slit her throat. People stepped over her like she was a piece of trash. Walked on by while she bled to. And he won't be in prison long. Yeah.

[B]

Well, Victor, we're going to wrap up. I just want to mention one thing. I'm happy for you in one sense, not happy. The reason you don't fly anymore is because we have medical reasons. But you're kind of sick of flying. You've told us many times about your terrible experiences. But, Victor, if you were still in flying mode, Mamma mia. The lines you'd have to be waiting on in these airports today would pop up.

[A]

Isn't that funny? Donald Trump had reportedly, in the fourth quarter, approximation of 5.2 economic growth. GDP, as you see it was vastly downgraded due to the government shutdown in the fourth quarter, which was by design, longest shutdown in the country. Only one purpose for it, and that was to punish Donald Trump so the economy would go into recession before the middle term. And now we have this other shutdown has nothing to do with Department ICE or any of the border controls. They're funded for three years. They know that it will not. They say they're doing it for ice. Originally they said they wanted to negotiate, but their price was pretty high. They wanted the firing of Kristi Noem and she basically was forced out. And they said, ah, that's not enough. And they're doing the same thing. They want a shutdown. They want chaos because they have no agenda. And if they do have an agenda, which they don't, nobody would vote for it. So their attitude is, I gotta create so much chaos that you, American voter, get in a fetal position, put your hands over your ears and say, make it all go away.

[B]

Oh, it worked in 2020.

[A]

Yes, it did. And we'll find an old Joe Biden from Scranton. Maybe it'll be

[B]

Gavin, won't be Shapiro.

[A]

Yeah, it won't be Shapiro, but it might be Gavin. Wolf will slap him around and say, no, no, no, you're Edmund G. Brown, Jerry Brown. You're a midstream old Democrat. You're not a radical. You can be as radical as you want when you're going to be when you get elected, but you're going to fake it like you're going to have. Remember you had Charlie Kirk on your pod. Well, you'll have those podcasts once you get nominated. That's what they do. And then barring that, they will open the borders like you won't believe if they get elected. They'll just open them and they'll say we want not 12 million, we want 30 million. Because they look at all of these groups and they think, wow, if I was out, I'm Karen and I'm. I don't want to use that term. People have written me, not to disparage their name, but this certain profile of a white, affluent, urban, suburban radical leftist that is foul mouthed mouth and can't even talk about Trump without going crazy and has all of these ideological left wing ideas that never pertain to herself as far as her own lifestyle. She's got a nice car, nice home, exquisite taste, but she goes out in the street and she looks and says, well, these poor immigrants, they're burning the flag of the country they don't want to go back to. I mean, they're burning the flag of the country they want to stay in and they're waving the one they don't. This is my kind of people. I'm going to go join them and protest. Very funny. They say they're on behalf of Mexican illegal aliens and South American, but every time I see them on television, they're spitting, yelling, screaming at somebody who's Mexican American. And ICE, the demographics of the ICE and the Border Patrol, it's well more than 12% of the Mexican American, 10% of the demographic, it's about 20%, let's just say it. Spanish speaking ICE agents are very patriotic, they're very courageous. And their main antagonists are wealthy white suburban women who spit at them and yell at them and curse them.

[B]

Miranda Devine was mocking on X this Thomas Friedman article it in the New York Times about going back to Minnesota and being so proud of what was going on there and the tremendous things these people were doing to fight ice, including women trading breast milk for their kids. This was some sign of civil society on the left and how they take on and fight ice. These people are just their whack jobs, but they're dangerous whack jobs.

[A]

They're dangerous it's like when they had that alternate, they had that show, you know, when they all walked out and those guys were dressed up in puppet uniforms and they were. That one guy who had crashed the church and tried to disrupt it, he was on the stage screaming and yelling obscenities. And then we saw. I mentioned this. I'll be kind of frank, I'm not judgmental, but I wouldn't say she was especially attractive. But she puts her rear end in the face of an ice agent and then twerps her rear end as if she's sexually desirable and filthy minded. And this is supposed to, I guess, send the message, I am so desirable, but I'm untouchable, so I'll get right next to you and arouse you, but I'm forbidden fruit. And he's probably thinking, oh my God, I don't really know if I can engage in sexual relations for 50 years.

[B]

Poke my eyes out, please.

[A]

So it's tragic. And where do these people come from? They come from the university. That was one thing about Trump, you got to give him credit. Unlike the first term, he said we dealt with symptoms, not causes. We just tried to cut out tumors. We didn't deal with the DNA. The DNA was the media and it's the universities and it's the corporate boardrooms and it's the foundations and the biggest blue chip law firm. And he understood that universities are mostly the culpable. They're the ones that train our high school, grammar school teachers. They're the ones that take. They can take any farm kid from the San Joaquin Valley and turn him into a communist in a year, right?

[B]

Yeah, the ones that give the finger at the pledge of allegiance. Hey, Victor, we've come to the end here, except for the usual end of the show business. I have a couple of comments I want to read. One is from Jimmy Olson Blues, who writes Love, VDH and Jack in this insane, upside down, fallen world. God bless you both for being angels of wisdom. Jimmy, there's one angel of wisdom here and that's Victor. But I appreciate your kind words. Then There's Common Sense 20 who writes, I enjoy hearing about Victor's Swedish ancestry. I can confirm that Scandinavians, even in the current generation don't show much emotion and do not get excited about much. My ancestry is mostly Norwegian with Swedish and German mixed in. I lived in northeast Iowa on a farm that has been in our family since 1854 and still attend the same church all my ancestors attended. I feel very fortunate to have such a strong connection to the past. I hope I can hold onto the farm and we'll be able to pass it on to my children. Thank you for another great episode. And then along the Same lines, Kevin Buja, 8105 writes, I enjoy what Dr. Hansen says and the common sense of it, but I absolutely love the family stories. One of my favorites is the uncle that cut off his thumb and went back to work. And Dr. Hansen's father had to take the uncle to the hospital. Personally. I would pay for at least one entire episode dedicated to family.

[A]

I can tell you that my twin brother ground off his finger tip. And he went to the emergency room. And we were packing fruit. And I looked around. Three hours later, there he was, back to work. Back to work. Can I end with an anecdote? I want a question, because I'm interested in this Catholic question.

[B]

Oh, yes, my friend.

[A]

What color are devils? I thought they were red, but we were talking about childhood stories. I was at Eric White Grammar School, and it was predominantly Mexican American students. And there was a very bright girl, Lydia. I think she's still around, so I won't mention her last name. And one day she came back from catechism on Fridays. The entire school was bust to catechism. There was like 20 of us. Yes, we were about 20 people who were Protestant. And they'd let us have the run of the school.

[B]

We called you the public school kids.

[A]

Yes. And we got frozen fish sticks on Fridays because you couldn't eat meat. So we all loved the Catholic kids. But anyway, she came back and she had this book. And she said that the devils were green. And I was like 12, and I had been pulling pictures off of Dory's Illustrated. Black and white cutouts of Dante's Inferno. And they. And then I'd asked my mom, what color are these? She said, they're red devils. Don't you know? What? Red Devil fireworks and red devil. We know they're. So when she said they were green, I said, no, Lydia, they're red. And she said, no, devils are green. And our church and our priests and the nuns told me they were green. Is that true?

[B]

I don't know that. Although I went to Chartres and I think there were some devils in the windows. And there's a difference. There's a red, green thing that came up, and I do forget yet I will find out and bring it up on the screen.

[A]

Yes, I want to know about that.

[B]

Yeah. I'll just say two quick last things since we're talking with Catholicism. One is when you Asked me the other day, why people coming back to the church or whatever. I do want to say that there's one thing about Catholicism is we believe the Eucharist is actual Jesus and the blood is actual. And that is something appealing to a lot of people. Temple, the real, what we call the real presence. So that was an allure. And I did not mention it the other day. And the other thing is, the interesting thing is St. Patrick's Day, we're recording and the show is up on the 19th. So the 19th is the feast day of St. Joseph, the father of Jesus. And St. Joseph's the patron of Italy. And the Italians in New York always, they have many reasons for resenting the Irish. I'm half Italian, half. But one was like that. Why was St. Patrick's Day such a big thing when two days later, our saints day, St. Joseph, who was the stepfather of Jesus of all people, how come we don't have the same kind of level of interest? But so there was always interesting, a little resentment here on my paisan.

[A]

I've seen a lot of people in New York that have your heritage. Half Irish and half Italian.

[B]

Yeah, well, they. The. Yes, I know many of them.

[A]

Megyn Kelly just said that the other day about her Irish ancestry. Did you hear that?

[B]

No, I, I did not.

[A]

But she's. I don't want to, I don't want to wade into the controversies, but she was taught people had been criticizing. She and Mark Levin were exchanging barbs. How's that word, barbs?

[B]

Barbs is a statement.

[A]

Yes, it's a euphemism. But when she was pressed, she said that she was. She was half Irish and she was. The Irish didn't let people push them around and they were street fighters, basically.

[B]

Yeah, well, that's. I mean, what group couldn't say that, right? You know, honestly, that's. I was once an excuse.

[A]

I was once talking about being Swedish when I was a little kid. I'm Swedish. I'm Swedish. And my mom said, now wait a minute. It. Your father's mother was not Swedish, she was Irish. I said, no, she's not. I asked, well, I think she was Irish and my mother was Irish. So you're more Irish than Swedish. And my dad came over and he took a baseball hat. He said, that's size 8 Pauline. He is not a homo. He is not one of your family's homoculus. He has got a nice big square empty head. He was kidding.

[B]

So it's a Max von Sydow kind of head.

[A]

Yeah, I love Max you know that I went to final thing I was. They had Swedish writer in residence at Gustavus Adolphus. And I came to speak there right after when he was there and. Yes, and I had a lunch with him. He was the nicest guy in the world.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Oh, yes, I did. Well, it was in the cafeteria, but wasn't a formal lunch, but I did get a hamburger and I saw him sitting there and walked over and sat. Wow, you spoke better English than I did.

[B]

You have led a very interesting, I was going to say charmed life, but you've just, you're surviving cancer surgery, so you've got an interesting life victory. All right.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Hey, go to civilthoughts.com, sign up for the free weekly email newsletter I write for the center for Civil Society every week. It comes out every Friday and 14 recommended readings. I know you're going to like it. Civilthoughts.com Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus. If you're on X, Victor's handle is Dhanson. If you're on Facebook, Victor Davis Hansen Fan club is something you should check out. And VDH's Morning Cup.

[A]

Victor, you've been terrific.

[B]

You're always terrific. Thanks very much for all the wisdom you shared. Thanks, folks, for watching from listening.

[A]

As Jackson Brown says, I think I'm running on empty. Jack, you are time to end this.

[B]

Shut up, Jack.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

God bless, everyone. We'll see you soon.

[A]

Thank you for listening, everybody. I really appreciate. I want to also thank all these cards. I'm just inundated. And I read every one and they're so well written and they're calligraphy and they're witty and they're encouraging.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'd say 99% mentioned the Almighty is having a hand in things. I just said that because a person called me who was a surgeon very quickly, and he said, given the amount of blood that you lost and the number of transfusions, you're very lucky because people in your same situations have usually blit blood out.

[B]

I'm saying people ask, I say, Victor almost died.

[A]

I think that's true. And I think it was through the intervention of people like that that were praying for me.

[B]

I'm sure it was a Catholic school

[A]

saying, anyway, I have got all these. Yeah, I mean, I think I, I, I, I have.

[B]

I know the Knights of Columbus sent you a. I've had so many groups.

[A]

Yeah, they were so nice. And the people and then the stories of people who, you know, have had all these cancer stories that would just crush you. Person wrote today, and he said he had prostate stage four. And then he'd. He. He had the lung surgery like I did. But then they had a pulmonary embolism and then this and this. But four years later, I'm still here. It was so uplifting. You know, all these people lived lives as the great novelists out of quiet desperation.

[B]

Well, and it seems to me, I'm just an observer here, that there's a sense of a brotherhood that people feel with you anyway, but especially those who have.

[A]

Who have endured cancer. I was very lucky. I didn't realize how lucky I was that that surgeon looked at that tube and saw all the blood and got an operating room and got another anesthesia, got an anesthesiologist and went right back in, had no idea where the two veins in the artery were. Found them, reopened everything, put all the cameras back in place, clipped them, cauterized them, got me all back in one piece.

[B]

All right, well, we're blessed to have you here, Victor. All right, one more time. You're the best, folks. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye.

[A]

Thank you, everybody, for listening again. 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 [e-mail] and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.