← Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
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Reggie, I just sold my car online. Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did?
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Yep.
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On Carvana.
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Just put in the license plate, answered
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a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame. You don't say. Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast. Wow. Way to go. So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested. Car selling made easy on Carvana.
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Pick up these may apply foreign. Hello and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. This is our Saturday edition, and normally we're trying to do something historical, but we have so much news on the docket today, we're going to keep it with contemporary events. So we hope you stay with us for all sorts of news about the Iran war, the Clinton testimony, and also a tanker hit in the Mediterranean, perhaps by the Ukrainians. So stay with us for those stories and we'll be right back.
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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.
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Welcome back. This is Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. We are a subsidiary of the Daily Signal. We highly recommend everybody joining the Daily Signal website and seeing what they have to offer in the way of especially news and contemporary events. Very bright young, not students, actually, bright young journalists or people of the media that are running it. And Rob Bluey is the head of the Daily Signal, so we highly recommend that venue. So, Victor, I wanted to start maybe with the a few things about because we just had the primaries in North Carolina and Texas, and I suppose our viewers probably noticed that Jasmine Crockett did not win the primary in the Democrats for a Senate seat. And Crenshaw on the side of the Republicans, lost the primary for a Republican seat. And I was wondering if you had thoughts on either of those or anything about the primaries.
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Well, on the Democratic side they had this narrative that it's going to be blue again, like it was in the 60s and 70s. You know, I can remember there were all sorts of, you know, there were the John Connollys, but there were the Ralph Yarboroughs and there were a lot of liberal Texans in. So Jasmine Crockett thinks that she's going to be Beto, you know, again, as charismatic. And she doesn't realize he lost. I think he's run for Congress, he's president, senator, he loses. So she thought that she was going to galvanize the black vote and she would have a chance. The good news is that she gave up her, her congressional seat. She had to. So she's out. She's gone, zap, kaput. We don't see her anymore. No more big tirades about white people doing this and that to her and all this. The other thing that was strange that most states have polls, not all, but close at 7. Texas Supreme Court enforced that and she wanted to keep going until 9:00 o' clock almost. You know, in the big cities she thought that there were black voters that hadn't come out yet. You know, you have 12 hours. But she wanted more. So then when that didn't happen, she could, she claimed she couldn't close the gap. And then at that point she started blaming Republicans because it was a Texas Supreme Court. That's just absurd. The fact of the matter was she lost that Senate race because she couldn't win Hispanic voters. And so much for the intersectionality in the rainbow coalition. Hispanic voters are very sensitive. When she gets on her high horse and starts talking about white voters, white people, about 30% of people who reply to census who are Hispanic, rightly so, say they're white. And you know, whether we like these rubrics or not, I can tell you that I went to school with 60, 70% Hispanics in the summer. I was darker than 50% of them. So they have a point and they don't like to hear that all the time, that racial stuff. So she didn't win the so called DEI oppressed vote. She didn't win it, at least in the margins she needed. So she's out. That's too bad because she would have been in a very real politic. She would have been a very weak candidate. So on the other side, you've got Paxton, who was a kind of a maga, stalwart former attorney general, but he has so many. He's had adultery and he's had all of these attempted impeachment attempts. He's got a checkered history. And then you've got Cornyn, who is not quite a Bush Republican and not quite a maga. He's flexible. He's sort of like Lindsey Graham, but he's a solid voter and he can win. If he were to be the nominee, he would. Beatrico, yes, Talarico. Yeah, Talarico. He would beat Talarico. If Paxton wins, there will be rhinos and other people who will either sit out and might not vote for him. So at some point, Trump's going to have to make a decision because he hasn't endorsed anybody and he's got to get his pollsters out there in a month or two or whenever, and he's got to decide two things. Who has a better chance of winning the primary and who has a better chance of beating Talarico. That's what he has to do. And I think it's going to be as exasperating he is as exasperating as Paxton is to Rhinos and everything. He will get the MAGA vote in the primary, but Cornyn will probably win. I think he can win if Trump endorses him, and that's going to be a tough one. So Trump's going to get. He's going to have to poll the primary, he's going to have to poll the general, and then he's going to have to side and he'll do that. Which of those two candidates can beat the Democratic nominee?
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By the way, do you have any thoughts on Talarico as a candidate? I know you obviously think he's stronger than Jasmine Crockett, since you would rather have her there.
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Well, he's not crazy, so he doesn't spout off. He won because the typical liberal Austin Texan are people in the big cities who are white, yuppie upward. They don't like Jasmine Crockett. They can say all they want about being left wing and di, but they don't like to have somebody make fun of white people because they're white and she's a racist and that's all she does. And she should have known that, but she didn't. His problem is they're trying to. With Spamberger in Virginia and with Joe Biden in 2020, they know their agenda repels people. No one wants open borders, transgendered people in sports of the opposite sex where they shouldn't be, and biological sex and locker rooms. They don't trust them on the economy, they don't trust them on foreign policy. So they have to mimic feign camouflage what they are in the primaries and in the general election. So that's why Spamberger said, I'm a daughter of law Enforcement and I'm a CIA agent. And then as soon as she got in, she announced, unfortunately for her, that she wasn't going to cooperate at all with ICE at the moment. A Sierra Leone immigrant had again butchered a young woman, sort of like the train that we saw. And then she just taxed anything that moved. Joe Biden. Remember he ran as old Joe Biden from Scranton in 2020. And then he had his puppeteers, they made him Faustian bargain where they said if in 2020 we nominate Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or Spartac, any of those people, they're going to lose. However, if we can repackage good old Joe Biden from the 70s and keep his mouth shut and just go through the motions, he's senile. They knew it. And then we can bring in the Obama team and have the most rad administrator. And that's what they did and that's what they'll do with Talarico. He will say that he's a born again Christian, that he talks about Christ, that he's very religious, that he's compatible with evangelical Christian values. But he is a hardcore neo socialist. And I hope the Texans don't get fooled. I don't think they will. But it's Crenshaw. When he first came on the scene, everybody was startled. Ex seal, you know, he was a war veteran. He'd been wounded, lost an eye and he was responsible, good looking. I was on a panel with him once. He was very well spoken. I think he won by 60% in his first election. And then he was ambiguous about the MAGA movement and he felt that they were too isolationist or they didn't have a proper deterrent foreign policy. And he started getting in feuds, ex feuds, social media feuds. That's a big mistake. Everybody who gets in those one on one, it's a big mistake. But he did and he alienated the MAGA movement. And then if you're a congressperson in a state, there's two senators, there's a lot of congresspeople, the one thing you do not do is alienate the senator of your party. And he and Ted Cruz got into it and Ted Cruz endorsed his opponent. So he lost. And I think they will retain that seat. It's not going to be. And the seat troth or Toth. Yeah, he is a more conservative, more MAGA candidate. But Crenshaw was a very impressive guy at the beginning.
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Yeah, he sure was.
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A lot of people are like that.
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Well, Victor, before we go on and look at the Russian tanker that had lots of natural gas on it and is burning in the Mediterranean as we speak. I would like to welcome back Pure Health Research as a sponsor of the Victor Davis Hansen in his own Words show. If you want to drop extra pounds, boost energy levels or reduce swelling in your legs and feet, then this message is for you. Pure Health Research is on a mission to make America healthy again. And two of their best selling health supplements are leading the way. First is Liver health formula. Over 100,000Americans have a sluggish liver riddled with fatty deposits. This can kill your metabolism, pile up on the pounds and make you feel tired. Liver Health Formula takes care of all that. It supports thriving liver health with special nutrients like artichoke heart extract and milk thistle. This is one of the easiest ways to slim down and revitalize your energy levels. Next is lymph system support. If you struggle with fluid buildup or swelling in your legs, ankles or feet, this one's for you. The natural ingredients in lymph system support help gently flush extra fluids and toxins out of your body. And right now, for a limited time, you can get 35% off liver health Formula and lymph system support along with all 50 plus health supplements pure Health Research has to offer. Head over to PureHealthResearch.com and use the coupon code VICTOR at checkout. That's PureHealthResearch.com with coupon code VICTOR to save 35% on your order today. And we'd like to thank Pure Health Research for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show. So, Victor, there was a tanker on fire, natural gas fire in the Mediterranean just off of Malta. And it appears to have been hit by a drone. And it's highly suspected it was a Russian tanker taking gas, we suspect to China. I don't know if that's known for sure. And yes, and we think that the Ukrainians might have hit it.
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I think they did. They are known for sophisticated sea drone. So the implication is that a nondescript smaller ship, maybe at night unleashed a couple of sea drones and then they went skimmed across the ocean and hit this thing. But it was full, I don't know, 100,000 tons of liquefied natural gas. And we should remember something about these tankers. This wasn't one of the mega tankers, but the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is about those Nimitz class and Ford class. They're about 1,000ft long. And this one is the biggest. The Gerald Ford aircraft is the biggest. I think it's 105,000 displaced tonnage displacement. These mega tankers are 1500ft long and they can displace a half a million tons. So you wouldn't want to have this habitual. So we get back to this age old dilemma with Ukraine. What is militarily viable and justified given what Russia did to them, is not always geostrategically wise. So Russia invaded, Russia's killing civilians, Russia's doing this and this. But Russia is a huge nuclear power and we have been careful, we the West, Europe, how we arm them so that they don't do to Russia what Russia does to it. So they attack Kyiv with impunity. If we gave them, for example, long range missiles and they started taking out apartment buildings or part of the Kremlin, you can see what Russia would do. They have the wherewithal with tactical nuke and then we would be in a DEFCON one. So the same thing. If they are taking out these embargoed tankers on the high seas, first of all, they're going to blow up and they're dangerous and they pollute. You get this huge tanker adrift or maybe it will sink, we don't know. But you can't have open sea, open season. It's much better to let you know the United States, if it's dares to do that with Russian tankers and just take it into port. But it's escalating and I think the Ukrainians see us. Here's what's happening. We are now in a theater war with Iran. The attention is off Ukraine. There has been information that the Ukrainians have been helping us with drones, given their expertise. And so they feel that they can do things now that the world won't pay attention to. And especially because there's been a lot of things, I've written some of them that this war, if it should be successful, and I think it will be, will emasculate Russia for good and China in the Middle East. So Ukraine is looking at all this and saying, you know, they're not going to get really mad at me because I'm kind of doing what they're doing. And they would like, after they knock out Iran, they would like the war to end with a viable, autonomous Ukraine intact and maybe they can turn their attention to Cuba. And this is now a geo, kind of a lukewarm, hot, cold, geostrategic war between China and the United States and maybe Russia with China at times. So they see a window of opportunity to up it. But it's a dangerous thing because you've got too many things going on in the choke points of the world. We've had this problem with the Panama Canal we had to deal with. We've got Gibraltar now, where Spain, our base is right there. The Spanish won't let us use these bases, NATO bases, to operate against Iran. We've got the Black Sea of the Bosphorus, where Russia is coming. You know, that's the only way it can get out. Yet it's at war, right, with Ukraine and it's been attacking ships and vice versa on the Black Sea. Turkey so far has honored its commitments and let people come through that choke point. We have the Straits of Hormuz. I never understood why they never made a. You know, you have that peninsula that juts out from Oman and then you have that little narrow. I never understood why they didn't make sort of a Panama Canal across Oman so they would be protected. Just make a straight shot rather than go up and then back right in front of Iran. But Iran doesn't have a navy now, but they've got a lot of drones and we don't even know if they have sea drones or not. So they can, they can stop. So my point is Trump's midterm is iffy if the price of gas. He's been triumphantly bragging that he got the price and justifiably so. But when you've got the Straits of Hormuz and now you're attacking liquid natural gas on the high seas, it's going to be, I think, every. He can't stop now. But there's going to be pressure for him from the bankers and the insurance companies and the Europeans to say, well, you won, but you can't right now because you haven't quite demilitarized Iran and you still have a shot at getting a regime that's different than the one there.
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Yeah. So I have a question actually on that, but let's take a break and then come back and we'll talk a little bit more about the war in Iran. Stay with us and we'll be right back. Hey, how are you? Ready to go for a run?
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Connection is why we move forward and
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what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there.
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Learn more@brooksnunning.com welcome back. This is Victor Davis Hanson in his own words, Victor, is for anybody who is new the Martin and Neely Anderson Senior Fellow in Military History and Classics at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne M. Archer Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. You can find him at his website, victorhanson.com the name of the website is the Blade of Perseus. So, Victor, I did have a question on that. It seems like the war is devolving at its center to American and Israeli air power is somehow supposed to meet protests on the ground and maybe there'll be a regime change. And I was wondering what you thought about what could possibly happen. And then second thing is if you could give evaluation of the significance of Israel in this war. I know it's very significant, but I would like to hear that you know, your thoughts.
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Well, the conventional wisdom is that if you go to war, especially in the Middle east, and you want to change the regime, you have to be on the ground. I don't quite think that all the examples quite fit that. In the 91 war, 91, first Gulf War, we were on the ground. We had a huge coalition. We had almost a million there, and we didn't change the regime. So it's always a political matter. In 2011, Barack Obama started bombing Libya with the French and the British. They did remove the regime, but they didn't. They weren't there to usher in a replacement. So you had tribal warfare. And of course, Hikem Jeffries just embarrassed himself when he said that you needed a war powers resolution to conduct war and the Democrats would insist on that. And of course, that's not what Obama did. And then he said, well, it was very temporary. No, it wasn't very temporary. He bombed, bombed, I think the last day in office in 2017, in January, he sent a. He bombed a camp in Libya. He was bombing, bombing, bombing. So can you remove a regime? I think you can remove it. I think the point is not that you can't remove a regime, but it's hard to remove a and then replace it with something you want. We had to go in on the ground with Maduro, so we'll see. And the $64,000 question is, is there anybody on the ground? Somebody's on the ground because somebody I know, the Israelis have tapped into their traffic cameras, they've tapped into their communications, but they have Mossad people all over that country and the United States probably does, too. We have a lot of Iranian expatriates here in the country. So I don't know what the plan is as far as there is A rough division of labor. The United States is going after all of the air defenses. Not that they don't overlap, but they're concentrating on the missile launchers, the air defenses, and maybe some government buildings that are associated with the Revolutionary Guard. I think Israel has a checklist of all the people it wants out and it has better intelligence on the ground than we do. And I think they are the ones that are removing, going down that checklist. And I think the point they're trying to make and whether they have us do it or not, that's their emphasis. And I think what they're trying to do is say to the Iranians, anybody who takes over that has theocratic credentials is going to be dead. So you can announce that you're the next Khamenei or you can announce you're the next Ayatollah or you're the next whatever president. But it's funny, they haven't gone after the president. There's certain people they don't go after. And that sends a dual message. It says if you're going to moderate and you might want to be a transitional figure, you're not going to get killed. And they're not really going after the officers anymore of the Iranian army that don't have theocratic connections. So we'll see. And the people can't go out yet because there's an active war. So the $64,000 question, to use that phrase again, is when they say we're going to take a pause, will these people go out? And if they go out and the Revolutionary Guard unleashes Iraqis or Hezbollah killers, as they did last time and themselves, will there be ground support? I don't mean from 20,000ft. Will they send in Apache helicopters or something to help the protesters? And then we're in a real war. So there's a lot of unknowns.
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Yeah, there sure is. And I understand that the Americans spent some time before this war started arming Kurdish military in the north. And what is the significance of that faction up there?
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Well, it's really tricky. There's never been a modern. There's never been a modern Kurdistan autonomous place. The closest we got after the Iraq war, I think that's the model. When we went into Iraq, we basically said there's going to be parts of Iraq that are going to have semi autonomy, and they do. But there are Kurds in Syria, there's Kurds in Iran, there's Kurds in Iraq and there's Kurds in Turkey. But they're disparate they're not all collected, but they're very pro American. And I would imagine that we're going to tell them and they're controlled by Iran, they don't have autonomy. So on the borderland at least they go across the border. But on the borderland they're in many cities where they would be able to, if they were armed properly and led and supported, they could take over the municipalities. And if they started to do that, the idea would be, well, the Kurds now have thrown out the revolutionary government and it's in an open civil war and then maybe other people to the south or wherever it would start to join.
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Well, I then was wondering about those allies or not so great of allies who were opposed this. I know Spain stands out in front as the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has blocked the US from using bases. But the British were a little bit reluctant to let us use bases and Greenland announced that it wouldn't allow us to use bases.
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You know, I think I mentioned before 1974 was a student in Athens and you had the Cypriot war with Greeks against Turks. The Turks invaded and helped the Turkish minority take half the island. And because they were both NATO countries, ostensibly the United States said that it wouldn't intervene. But Kissinger and the Realpolitik people said, well, look at the NATO power. Look at the military government in the military government in 1974 in Turkey was not Erdogan like it was staunchly pro American. And the government that had replaced the dictatorship had now elected a anti American with American wife, of course, Papandreou. So you had this anti American Greek government where the Greeks were being slaughtered by this overwhelming Turkish force. And they got very, very angry about it. And that raised the whole question of NATO bases. And there had been a pre existing precedent for this during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The Greek government, which was still a dictatorship, I think it was General Ioannadi's, I think the prior colonels had been replaced. But here's what my point was. I sat in a NATO above the NATO base in Chania, Crete with about three guys and we stayed up all night with binoculars. It was, it was dusk and it was lit up. But here were this American carrier and these planes were coming from European bases and landing on aircraft carriers. I guess they were being refueled and then flying in because Israel was losing due to SAM3s and SAM6s, a lot of their Phantom jets. But my point is Greece was a NATO power and would not let a fellow NATO power Use their home soil and use that base. And guess what? Meanwhile, the Russians announced to the Greeks that they were going to fly over Greek airspace and supply the Egyptians. And it was just crazy. You know, why are we allowing. And why are we allowing this to happen? Well, Nixon was crippled because of Watergate. That was starting to come up. And so Spain is doing the same. And it happened again with Reagan, with the bombing of Libya. They used the F11s and they were told based in Britain and they would not allow them even to fly over Europe, much less to be to use a base there. It would have been much easier to go from Europe, obviously, but they wouldn't let them. And so now they're telling us you can't use the Diego Garcia airfields, which would been handy for big bombers. But on second thought, because you're doing pretty well now, and they did attack Cyprus, which is a British base, we'll let you use it, but it will only be for defensive purposes, whatever that means. That was the British government, and then the Spanish government said, you're not going to use this NATO base. And Trump said, we could of course use it if we wanted, unless you want to try to stop us. But. And the question then is Spain thinks with this socialist government very anti American. The Spanish people, I think are pro American, although they poll about like, well, they. And it's funny, if you wouldn't be surprised about popularity of America in Europe, you would think that Italians would be anti American. French. The two greatest anti American countries are Spain and Germany, especially Germany. And the highest are Italy, France and Britain. But Britain's I don't think is, according to Pew polls I've seen, is not as favorably inclined toward the United States as Italy is. And Greece is getting up there. So it's, it's got a better appraisal of us. So what do you do about that? And then they, they've also said, we're not gonna, we're the, we're not gonna arm to 5%. They should just say to them, if you're not going to arm to 5% and this rogue theocracy that's threatened everybody in Europe, and we're not asking you to help, we're just saying that we have planes here that we'd like to use. And you're so scared of your Muslim population, which they're going to let in 500,000 illegal aliens and give them a right to vote. You can see that what's in the mind of the left, I don't mean in Spain, I mean the universal Western left. That's what Biden did. Only stupid enough to say so like they did. And so my point is, how do you stop that? I think what you should just do is just say, okay, we're not going to be there anymore, just get out. And then we should go say to the polls or the Czechs, hey, we've got 50 planes or 40 planes, we've got a big budget here to help your comet. We're going to go there and we'll tell the British you're socialist, they're socialist, you patrol Gibraltar, we're done with you. Not that we're not still allies. Same thing with Canada. Carney is just crazy. He invited in the, he basically said that we are medium sized powers and we can't be subject to the dictates of the United States. That's what he said. And then we're going to have closer, basically said we're going to have closer ties with the United States rival, which is a bloodthirsty 1 million Uyghurs in camps, forced abortions, you know, genocidal state. And that's what he said. And then he kind of backed down and then he gave a speech that was just incoherent. The rules based order. I'm so worried about the rules based order. The United States is violating the rules. But what do you think Iran was doing when they killed 30,000 people? Well, you know, we condemn Iran, but we also don't like what the United States is doing. And then, you know, everybody thinks Trump is crazy and brash, but Trump understood him. He sized him up as a globalist who had citizenship in three countries and was about as Canadian as I am, although he helped him get elected by trashing the conservatives. But the point is he should just say, you know what there's going to be in the next years, there's going to be a lot of danger from China and Russia. And I wanted to, you can see what Spain did. I didn't trust these European NATO members to protect the West. So that's why I wanted Greenland. I wanted to put a big fat base up there near the Arctic Circle and knock down missiles coming straight over into Western countries. They didn't want that. And you can see Spain doesn't. You can't trust them. And then he said, Canada, you know what, we're going to make a big golden dome. And if you think we don't follow the rules based order, I don't blame him. Just check out, check out.
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I don't think they don't drop Spain out of NATO if it can't ante up at 5%, you know, well, that's.
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These suggested they just made. I think they just barely made their 2%. And it was too bad because, you know, it's been a very good ally of the United States. I think it was the Salazar government. I don't, I can't remember his name. He was a conservative that sent troops to. And that cost him his political career. Anybody, you know, I was in Barcelona two years ago. I never seen such an economic boom. I mean, you couldn't go to a hotel. Everything was just packed. It's a beautiful country. You know, I've been there maybe five or six times. High speed rail, everything. It's just very impressive. But it wasn't impressive because of the socialists. It was a big impressive because you had conservative free market governments in the past and you don't now. This isn't even a socialist government there, it's a communist government. And it really thinks, it really likes to tempt, ridicule the United States. And I don't think they understand when Trump, he doesn't care. Somebody will come in, you know, some bureaucrat or general, President Trump that these bases are curious are absolutely crucial to. And they are, you know, they are, they have. Centrally located in the Mediterranean. We use them 500 times a month. We can't lose them. You just say, so what? Let them deal with it. We'll save money.
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Yeah, I don't think those European nations have really quite gotten over, not the United States, not deferring to them post World War II as much as they would like.
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B
I think everybody, this should be a wake up call to everyone that. But when Trump says you can't trust the Europeans or they're not ponying up or they're freeloaded. Okay, that term, by the way, free rider came from Obama. Then you see, you get in a crunch. And you would think the British government, given that we came to their aid in 1917, we came to their aid in 1942, you would think the British would say, and by the way, during the Falklands War, when Thatcher wanted to have intelligence and logistical supply to take the war to Argentina, when the United States had a big Latino population and we were trying to deal with Galateri the dictator, the British said, look, we're a NATO member and we had Haig, who was openly pro the Secretary of State at that time, he was openly pro Argentina. Reagan said, nope, we have a special relationship with Britain. So the United States did all it could without rupturing Relations with its own backyard. Everybody from the tip of Chile to the southern border of the United States was fanatic pro Argentina. I was farming at the time, and I was out with about 50 Hispanic people, and we were doing the raisin harvest, and I was driving a tractor with five guys to pick up the raisin trays. And every five minutes, hey, Victor. Hey, those gringos are going to lose, man. They're going to lose. Argentina is going to cream the man. I said, how much you want to bet? I said, I will take $5 bets from each of the four guys. And they said, oh, you're so stupid. I said, do you know anything about Trafalgar? What's that? I said, it's the British naval tradition. Do you know anything about Waterloo, the Duke Arthur Wellesley? Do you know anything about the Psalm? Do you know anything about the British military tradition? You don't. They will not. And do you know anything about Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Woman that the Russians can't stand? She will not stop. And they're going to go in there and they're not like Americans. Once they start to do stuff, they'll start sinking. They blew up the Belgrano, you know, a big World War II type cruiser, and they killed hundreds of people. They just demolished that thing. And they were thinking, I mean, they had subs there that had nuclear weapons on them, and they were. They had no limitations. And it was all over this little Falklands thing, you know. And I was on their side, of course. And you wouldn't believe how these people, the guys. There's a guy named Antonio, he's really hard worker. And he said, victor, you're going to lose all your money. Let's double the bet. I said, $10. So then when they lost, just about two weeks later, I took the 20, $30 from them and I went in town and I bought like five, six packs of Coke, Dr. Pepper, no beer, because they were working. And I gave it to them. And I went to a restaurant called Sal's and bought about 30 tacos and enchiladas. And we all ate. And then it was like, oh, wow, you're right. But Argentinians, you know, Victor, I saw the tv, they're white. I said, you got a point there. They're German and Italian. I said, they're not real Mexicans. But my point is that that was a tough decision for the United States with a Latino population and everybody in its own backyard, for Argentina to have these mystical ties of brotherhood with the British. And here's this socialist sturmer and what's he doing? You can't use Diego or Garcia because unless you're doing defensive operations. So a pilot's in an F16 and he's flying over and he's got to say, hmm, ah, I'm going to take out this missile launcher that's going to launch in one minute and hit Israel or hit a base in Qatar. Is that an offensive operation? Or I'm going to take out this colonel who's going to order these people to take. It's silly. This guy is an idiot. He's a total idiot.
- [41:19]
A
Yeah. What does death to America mean? I mean, it's all defensive at that.
- [41:25]
B
He has a Muslim population, but it's only about 7 or 8% still. It's getting big and it's big in the big cities. And Europe has, I know, Germany has 16%, but they still are not at a tipping point where they could say they're afraid of Muslim demonstrations and then they're just ignorant because here you have the whole Gulf states and they're all pro American right now because they've all been hit. I mean, I think they've sent something like 500 or 600 drones against the Emirates and Oman and all these people who have been all year long calling Trump up and saying, hey, President Trump, you gotta hit Iran if you're gonna go there, you gotta finish the job this time. But don't get mad. I'm gonna call for both sides to be reasonable and I'm going to say that this is very dest for the fragile conditions and atmosphere and architecture of the Muslim Middle East. So don't get mad. And that's what they did.
- [42:32]
A
Yes. And in fact, some of the people who have been anti Trump in the United States have the same approach. But let's get to those after I.
- [42:41]
B
That's a good point. Can I just make before you.
- [42:43]
A
Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Before I go to our sponsor, I
- [42:47]
B
didn't write very many op eds. I only wrote for David Osmond and believe it or not, Max Boot, he was a very good editor at the Wall Street Journal, but David Osmond was a very good. And in the 90s I wrote op eds for them, but maybe, I don't know, once every five months or something. So I was cognizant of the punditry, but I remember the preeminence in the conservative movement of Bill Kristol. He was on Sunday TV with George Will every weekend. He was Dan Quayle's brain. They called. He was co founder with Robert Kagan. I Think of the Project for the New American Century, Fareed Zakhar. They were all these realists who were in favor of preemptive warfare. I couldn't understand. I supported Iraq, but it was only post 9 11. This was before 9 11. They wanted to go in because the no fly zones hadn't worked. It had been seven or eight years. They wanted to go in and preemptively change the whole Middle east, invade it, get rid of Hafez al Assad, get rid of Saddam Hussein, maybe even get rid of the Saudi, who knows? And then make it a democratic neocon thing. And there was going to be some guy from, I don't know, east Palestine, Ohio, who was going to go over to places like that. So then he went. And then when he offered his services to the new Trump people, when he knew Trump was going to win and he was a Never Trumper and that failed. Remember, David French was going to be their candidate. For a while it was just a circus and then they got wiped out. Then people like him and others quietly under the radar said they were willing to volunteer their genius and they were roundly refuted. So then he went with left wing money to the bulwark and it's just a parade of anti Trump things. So I was looking at it the other day and I remember, correct me if I'm wrong, listeners, but during the protest, when Trump said help is on the way, he said something to the effect, well, you would like to attack your own people in Minnesota, but you won't help those people on the street. Meaning I hate you. But I'm not, I'm still a neocon at heart. We should be going over there and intervening. And so then they're, Trump does that. Of course, Trump, when he said help is on the way, what he meant was, I need two carriers and about 50 ships and I need a thousand planes because I'm going to really take this out. Not like last time. But of course they didn't care about the truth. So then he just tweeted something about how awful Donald Trump was by going into Iran. Can you believe that? After he told the United States for his whole life, his whole life, he said, preemptive war to change the regime, to bring peace and prosperity and capitalism and liberty and democracy to those who deserve it and we need to spend our blood and treasure. And we did it in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Trump's not doing it. When he said help and then whatever. And that sums up the Never Trump movement. They're so obsessed and deranged. That anything that is good for the United States, if Trump's for it, they're against it. And anything that vitiates or refutes their entire philosophy, their whole life, they're willing to do that if it's opposite to what Trump says. And that's what's really bizarre about that.
- [46:26]
A
It points to a general soullessness of those ex neocons, I guess.
- [46:30]
B
Well, I mean, there were so many of them. If you think just gosh, all during the 90s and at the millennium, all you heard was Robert Kagan. And I knew his dad, who was a saint, Donald Kagan. But there was Robert Kagan and there was Bill Kristol and there was Elliot Cohen and Max Boot and David Frum. Right, and John Bolton. These were all the people that we were supposed to get wisdom from. And they all turned out. They all either voted for Hillary or they voted for a third party. And they'd surely voted for Biden. And they. Max Boot was on TV the other day. I knew him very well, he was very friendly. But he was on making a case for why we have to oppose what Trump's doing in Iran.
- [47:22]
A
Soulless, Victor. I say soulless, but let's welcome back a sponsor, Patriot Mobile. This year marks a critical moment for our country as the opposition grows more aggressive and unapologetic. The fight now reaches into the everyday decisions we make. Patriot Mobil has been standing on the front lines fighting for freedom for more than 12 years. They don't just deliver top tier wireless service. They are activists who truly care about our country. Patriot Mobile offers prioritized premium access on all three major US networks, giving you the same or better coverage than the main characters. That means fast speeds and dependable nationwide coverage. Backed by 100% US based customer support. They also offer unlimited data plans, mobile hotspots, international roaming and more. With simple seamless activation, you can switch in minutes, keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade. And here's the difference. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you'll be part of a powerful stream of giving that directly funds the Christian conservative movement. Take a stand today. Go to patriotmobile.com vdh or call 972-patriot and use promo code VDH for a free month of service. Don't wait. That's patriotmobile.com VDH or call 972 Patriot. And we'd like to thank Patriot Mobile for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hanson show. So Victor, since we were on the left, I would like to ask you about George Will, who also was one of these neocons. That went anti Trump. And he recently wrote an article that made these points, that Ayatollah and his lot really meant death to America. They really meant Israel was a one bomb country. And that now he's on Trump's side. Trump's war is, according to Will, a necessary beginning to a peaceful world. And he even looks back at Bush, Obama and Biden, Putin that had all this goodwill about Iran and goodwill has achieved nothing. So George Will has thrown the dice, I mean, thrown his lot in with Trump recently. And that is a huge change for him.
- [49:59]
B
I give credit to him. I knew George Will very well. I was on a board with him and I was disappointed. I wasn't disappointed that he voices opposition. Trump, that's fine. I have no problem with people I disagree with. But in many cases, he wasn't like the Bulwark people or the others. He stayed conservative. But a lot of his positions that he had held in the conservative context, he no longer held if Trump's fingerprints were on them. But this is really good. I really admire him because what basically he's saying is all of the people, I'm sure he voted for Biden, but all the people that I had supported in the past were wrong and the person I despise was right, and here's why. And that's a principled position. So I give them credit. There's a larger issue, and that is people that I knew very well and I still know some of them in the MAGA movement are now, I think Tucker, as we've said, said that this was an evil and disgusting attack that Trump did. And then of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene got very, she voiced that. And Steve Bannon and Megyn Kelly, whom I really like and I've been on her show a lot, but she attacked Trump and then she had attack, I think today or yesterday on Sean Hannity, whom I know and like a lot and said that he was too rah rah for Trump. But I think everybody has to take a step back and just ask empirically, is this in the interest of the United States, not Israel, not anybody else. Just look at, is it in the interest of the United States? And could you make an argument that because Trump says he does everything in the interest of the United States, let's look at it. First of all, if you count up all the people, and I don't believe, and I don't think anybody believes the 500 people who were killed in the Iraq war by shape charges and they even ship them to Afghanistan, there were more like 2000 and there were hundreds, if not thousands of maimed Americans. Why Iran was shipping these deadly IEDs. And I don't know why George W. Bush didn't stop it, but I guess he didn't want to escalate another theater. But their people blew up the Cobar Towers, they blew up the two embassies, they blew up the Beirut embassy, they blew up the Marine barracks, they sent assassinations. They were trying to kill Pompeo, they were trying to kill John Bolton, they were trying to kill Trump, they tried to kill the Saudi ambassador, they blew up a bunch of Jewish people in Argentina. They kidnapped Americans, they butchered them. And every time we tried to say, okay, let's have a detente with them, somebody Bush said, okay, we're not going to go after you. And Obama then took it to the extreme of insanity, where he said, basically, I'm tired of Israel and the Sunni monarchies and I want to balance them with this theocracy because they're Persians and they're Shia and they're the underdogs. And he basically welcomed a Shia crescent of Iran and Syria and Lebanon and Hezbollah and Hamas to create tension. And then he would adjudicate there being no moral difference from this regime that hangs young girls who expose their head or doesn't have a scarf on or shoots homosexuals with Israel. So my point is, we had a lot. This war has been going on and on and on and. And if the reports are right, and I think it's demonstrable because it fits the character of Iran, they said to them, we will provide you with fissionable material. We'll keep track of it. It will only be enriched to a certain area, but you have to stop your centrifuges and enrichment. And they said, why would we do that? We have 450 kilos. We have enough to make 11 bombs right now. We can do what we want. And does anybody really believe that if they get the bomb, that they won't. I don't know whether they'll use it or not, but they will say to their neighbors, the Saudis, everybody where 40% of the world's oil comes from, you're going to do this and you're going to do this because we're crazy and we want to go to paradise, so we're going to nuke you. And then they will have a ballistic. They almost have one now. They can hit anywhere in Europe or they can say to the United States, well, we want to go to paradise, and we only have 11 or 12 bombs, but we can take out London, Paris, we might even be able to take out San Francisco or Los Angeles. And this is in the future, do you really want that regime that's been there for 45 years as a thorn in the world side? Not ours, the world. Okay. And Mr. Rafanjani, who's the big crook, the criminal former prime minister or whatever you want to call him, he's now thinking of coming back. He was the one allegedly who said that Israel was a one bomb state. Others have said it was good that Israel was created because you got half the world Jews in one place. So with all of that, would we be there after if October 7th had not occurred? No, we were not going to go in there. October 7th, Donald Trump's first term, he did not do that. He came in the second time and he saw what Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis were doing on the prompt of Iran. And he said to himself, my God, you don't even have a Red Sea anymore. You can't navigate through the Red Sea because it's too expensive. It's a seven million dollar Patriot missile to knock down a $30,000 drone. And they're just stopping all traffic. You can't even get to Suez. And then he said, oh my gosh, they're controlling the Straits of Hormuz. And then he said, oh my gosh, they attacked Israel out of nowhere. It was they who attacked them. Hamas and Hezbollah. And the Houthis can't do anything unless they get supplies and money from Iran. Take away. October 7th. And that's not saying that we're doing something for Israel. It's what we're saying is that they were funding terrorism at a level that was geopolitical, geostrategic. It was all over the world, they were having operatives, Latin America. So Donald Trump said, I will do a limited one off. I did a one off with Soleimani. And I said, this guy killed our people in Iraq. I want him dead. Because he was trying to do it again to bases in Syria and Iraq. And he did. And then the Iranians said, and Trump said, you can have a one off performance, heart attack. And there were some people who got wounded with traumatic stress from the bomb, but nobody got killed. And Trump said, that's it. So he was willing to do that, just like he did with Baghdadi, just like he did with the Wagner group. One offs. And then he gave him a one off. He got in, he said, I'm going to take out these nuclear facilities. And he did. And the question did. It was indisputable. That he destroyed the ability to make new nuclear weapons for a long time. But did he get the fissionable material? That was a big, he didn't know where it was. The stuff they'd already processed and now they're bragging that they already had it. And they were basically telling the negotiators, we don't really care what you say because we have it. And at some time you'll be dead and Trump will be out of office and you'll get somebody like, I don't know, Bernie Sanders or you'll get aoc. And when you get that person in there, we will give you a hypersonic warning about a nuclear war weapon. And when you say that classical deterrence works, we're going to be crazier than the North Koreans. You're having a problem with the North Koreans because you think they're crazy, but they're not as crazy as we are. And craziness is an advantage in nuclear poker. So that's why he did that. He didn't do it on the prompt of Israel to take away October 7th and we wouldn't even be there. It was just an occasion where everybody thought this nation is out of control and it was a reckoning and then nobody in their right mind. The other thing about it was, and I'll be frank, everybody thought that they were, they looked at all those videos of those goose stepping Nazi like soldiers, you know, and all that shouting death to America and they remembered the hostages and they saw all the terrorism and all of the Hezbollah stuff and they said, these guys are terrifying. And then you would read Hezbollah one day you'd read, Hezbollah has 80,000 missiles. No, they have 100. They have 120, 140. And then you'd say the Houthis, they have 50, 50,000 drones and missiles and there's a ring of fire around Israel. Ring of fire. They're paralyzed. And now Iran has over 100,000. They're, they're just unbeatable. And so what happened, that whole thing vanished last year. You, when they completely destroyed the defenses of Iran and revealed it as a paper tiger. An inept, incompetent, theocratic mess that can't do anything to anybody when there's a real war. Only during peace can they scare people and only if they have the bomb. So Trump came to the conclusion, I don't want any more terrorism in that area. You get rid of these people and Iran will be a, a free country. The people will not be shot, starved, wiped out. But more importantly, it's in our interest, there'll be free flowing oil to Europe. The Saudis and all these people will probably disown. Hamas, Hezbollah will be broke, the Houthis will be broke. And I'm going to do it. And it's in our interest and we won't have to. I'm not going to pass it on to the next administration because eventually if you do, you'll get an Obama 2.0.
- [60:31]
A
No, no.
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B
And he'll cut a deal with them.
- [60:35]
A
Yeah. And that's a frightening day.
- [60:37]
B
So $400 million at night on a pallet.
- [60:40]
A
Yes. So Trump is really doing everybody a favor. Not in the US and it's not
- [60:47]
B
gonna have any ground troops. I don't think they'll have any ground troops. I think it'll be over in three weeks. And we had tragically lost six people, but it's not gonna be 4,000 like Iraq or Afghanistan. It's not gonna be a humiliation like the sk Afghanistan. So I don't know why when Tucker said that, and I knew him very well, so I'm not trying to just fixate on him, but when he said that the first incursion would lead to World War 3 and 30,000 are dead or something and that didn't happen, wouldn't you be more circumspect about editorializing about the second round? And he said it's disgusting and evil. Well, he's basically telling Donald Trump that you're disgusting and evil. And he went into the White House reportedly three times to persuade him. So this is another problem. And that is that wing I don't think represents the MAGA base. If you look at the polls, it's about 50, 50 now according to the latest poll about Americans in general. And the Republicans are, I don't know, 60, 40, 70, 30. And I don't know where the MAGA base would go in the midterms, but they would be insane to sit out and turn it over to the socialist communist Democrats. So I don't know what their strategy is if there is one politically. And then you have people who are going to say and do things that are going to be embarrassing to other people. If you have. And you're going to talk about that, I guess Candace Owens knew what documentary on Charlie Kirk's wife.
- [62:33]
A
Yeah, the Bride of Charlie Kirk and she's basically in the documentary is calling
- [62:38]
B
her a liar, calling her Bride of Frankenstein.
- [62:40]
A
Yeah, basically that's the. Just the name and the. She's. And she's saying that she's lied about a lot of things in the documentary. So I don't know what value there
- [62:51]
B
is in it, but this is what I don't understand. And I know her, I've met her before. Not well, but you name that Candace Owens and I think the American people, to the degree they know of her, they only know about four things. She was the one that said that the moon operation never happened. She was the one that said the Mossad likely killed Charlie Kirk. She was the one that likely insinuated, I'm just saying, just throwing it out there that maybe Charlie Kirk's wife was involved all Is that it?
- [63:27]
A
I, I haven't seen this documentary, but I, I, from reading about it, it sounds like more that she's talking about all the things she claims that Erica Kirk has lied about. And I don't know if that's what
- [63:38]
B
would be what's the purpose of that?
- [63:40]
A
I getting Erica Kirk and getting clicks. I think she's. A lot of your readers think that Tucker and Candace are both clickbait freaks and that's their mother.
- [63:50]
B
They are, they are, are. But. There was a time when Candace Owens didn't do that. And Tucker, if you go back on his appearances on Fox, he was a little bit more maga, right. Than the other people were more maga. But even he got angry at Trump and said he didn't like I just test Donald Trump after January 6th. But he wasn't, there were guidelines. I mean, he used to go out to UFOs and stuff, but there were guidelines rails that he operated in and he was very successful. He had the highest radio show and she was very popular. And then that kind of blew up. She kind of had a falling out with Charlie Kirk and he was left, he left Fox and was let go and then they went independent. So what I'm getting at is, is their move into that new territory is coterminous with their independent reliance on what entrepreneurial cliques. And so I don't know, I mean, we could say things on here that would be clickbait, but what would be the purpose of it?
- [65:10]
A
Do you think that they have a constituency that they're after the two of them, that there's some sort of anti Semitic, I don't know. She's got some strange theories, Candace. Well, so does Tucker on UFOs and things like that.
- [65:26]
B
Well, when he says that Jews should take a DNA test or something, as I said last time there was a person who wanted a DNA test, that was Erdogan and he was getting tired of history books, he said that, said that Modern Turkey, Asia Minor had been the province of the West. Greeks first in the Classical period and then later Roman Anatolia and then the Byzantine Empire, which was the Greek language, the Orthodox religion and the protector of the legacy of Rome for a thousand years. So he did a 21andMe genetic test, I think, of 1500 Turks to see, to show everybody they were Turk. And then they had disappeared because I think there's something like 71% their major DNA was Greek. So I don't. The other thing is when you're talking about Israel, which was formed post Holocaust and it was the historic home of the Jews and you had yellow stars on Jews and you had an elaborate genealogy department of the Nazi apparat. So that if you were a Nazi hierarchy and you were in a rivalry with another Nazi division, what everybody did was say, mein Fuhrer. He had a Jewish grandmother. Mein Fuhrer. Well, he had a Jewish cousin or he's 1 8th Jewish. So they had to solve that problem. So they had people that they didn't have DNA, but they had the 1930s and 40s equivalent of it. They had master genealogists. And so when you say that you want Jews to take a DNA test, there's a historical burden there for you from the beginning. And you should be very. Any DNA test like that, somebody's going to write in and say, well, Victor, you said that you're in a holding pattern because they took out your cancerous tumor and then they took the DNA of it and now they checked your blood to see if it's circulating. You have to have this every four months. So you like DNA tests. Tumors aren't people.
- [67:42]
A
No, they aren't. Well, Victor, let's go ahead and take a break and then come back and talk about a few things going on in the United States. Stay with us and we'll be right back. To realize the future America needs, we
- [67:58]
B
understand what's needed from us to face
- [68:00]
A
each threat head on. We've earned our place in the fight for our nation's future.
- [68:05]
B
We are Marines. We were made for this.
- [68:09]
A
Welcome back. This is Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. And you can find Victor X. His handle is Dhanson and on Facebook at Hanson's Morning Cup. So if you. Those are your social media outlets, please join him there. So there's a few stories that I thought were interesting this week. I don't know what you call there. They're like journalists, but they're also based in social media. So Andy ngo, whatever name you get, Internet influencers.
- [68:44]
B
I met him. I Met him once, yes.
- [68:46]
A
And he always does some really great investigative on the right.
- [68:51]
B
He's very brave.
- [68:52]
A
I know.
- [68:52]
B
I saw him in a Denver hotel, was surrounded. I was speaking in a conservative summit and he happened to be there and they heard about it and the antifa thugs surrounded the hotel and wouldn't let anybody in or out. And the police did nothing. I looked out the window and they were jumping on police cars. And then I was getting a car to go to the airport. So the guy called me and said, I'm not getting near there, that driver. So he said, you've got to sneak out. So I went down to the basement and then I talked to one of the concierge people and he let me out in the alley or whatever and then I walked, walked around and I said to the antifa, what are you doing? And we're here after Andrew Andy Ngo. Oh my gosh, we're going to lynch him. That's serious. It would kill him. He's a very brave person.
- [69:40]
A
He's very brave and he's got a current thing. He didn't take the video here, but he did place it on his site of a UCSF administrator. So that's the University of California San Francisco administrator,
- [69:57]
B
the state college.
- [69:58]
A
She was in something called transgender. It wasn't San Francisco State of some sort.
- [70:07]
B
It wasn't Stanford, San Francisco State.
- [70:09]
A
No, it wasn't. It was ucss.
- [70:11]
B
So it was the University of California Medical Branch there.
- [70:14]
A
Yeah, there is. I think she's part of it, but like an admin, you know what I mean? Like a hr. Yeah, hr, Human Resources. And she came up to a protester who was protesting against minors getting operations as probably most of our audience audience is against as well. And she said to this protester, I'm going to hunt you down and F blank, effing blank anyways, kill you. And boom. So I was wondering your thoughts on that. We've got these crazies in these very important positions.
- [70:50]
B
Five years ago I would have thought, 10 years ago I thought, well, I don't think that anymore. Not after they tried to take out the Republican leadership and wounded Maim's Representative Scalise. Not after both assassins who shot Trump were leftist. Not after Luigi Mangione, not after Charlie Kirk, not after the protests I see on campus, you know, anti Semitism and stuff. There was a Stanford email that was addressed to Jewish students just recently on campus. Campus. So no, I. And remember it's Jasmine Crockett and all these people say it's white, white, white. It's white. White. No, it's not. It is people on the left and DEI people and these. Karen. I can use that term. Karen. Yeah. So it's. But the tie that binds them are that they're all on the left and they feel that they have no political power.
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A
Power.
- [71:55]
B
They don't have the Supreme Court, they don't have the House, they don't have the Senate. They only have about 40% of the state legislatures. They don't have the presidency and they don't have people that are normal. That when everybody says, who's going to be the candidate? You're going to get a pathological liar and a guy who ruined California or you're going to get a retread word salad like Camila Harris. Who are you going to to get? So they're frustrated and then they close the border and those were their new constituents that should be forever thankful that you brought me from Oaxaca and you gave me housing and food and health care and all this free. And that stopped. And they're frustrated. So now what they do is they threaten people. And I mean, I get these angry leaders that are just nuts. Somebody's got said, I have one on there now that I answered. And he said he wanted me to walk off a pier and disappear. And somebody wrote and said, these are AI, Matt. No, it wasn't AI. I saw the email. It was not AI. So they're crazy people and you have to take them seriously.
- [73:08]
A
Absolutely. Well, just one thing before we get to the Clintons testifying before Congress. Just in that same vein. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled on a law in Californ that prevented schools from telling parents about their children transgendering. That they blocked that law.
- [73:28]
B
Yeah. What was that all about? Was Hillary Clinton, it takes a village, right? You don't own your children. The village does. It takes a village to raise a kid. They're going to in 20 years. It's going to be like thalidomide, you know, that drug that made all those birth defects. They're going to look back at this transgender thing and they're going to say, oh my God. God. We were removing the breast, we were implanting phalluses on women, we were cutting off testicles, we were maiming and injuring people who were on steroids and hormones and antidepressants and anti anxiety agents. And we didn't really. It was all a political movement. This was going to be our new civil rights thing that gave us a chance to get back on the street and represent the object oppressed and we used these young kids who, some of whom suffered from age old gender dysphoria, but the majority didn't, and we maimed them. And that's going to be something that a lot of people are not going to ever live down.
- [74:32]
A
Yeah, like the sultan creating his unit core, huh?
- [74:35]
B
Well, people, by the way, you know, when I wrote the end of everything, I read very carefully about the eunuchs in the harem. They tended to favor black eunuchs from Africa and they castrated them. And about as I remember the data, 30% of them survived. And people should remember that the Islamic slave trade, it wasn't just 11 million, and we in the west had 11 million, it was like 16 million. And castration and harems were much more brutal. I mean, it was a horrible institution. And the people in the west that brought slaves to the Western hemisphere were culpable. But nobody ever came to. They came to terms with that. Nobody ever came to terms with the Islamic slave trade. Even today, they don't. And this whole thing when people say that there's Christianity in gutter and they have churches, they're talking about an enclave of 400,000 Christians from India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and they can't carry a Bible outside, they can't build a church outside. And whatever religious buildings they have have to be sanctioned by the government. And if they go to a friend's house who's a Muslim and hand them a Bible and say, I think you should convert, both of them are subject to capital punishment. Almost all the goals. So they don't get it.
- [76:08]
A
They sure don't. Well, last thing that very prominent in the news where the Clintons both testified before the Investigative Committee on Jeffrey Epstein. And I was wondering if you had any thoughts.
- [76:22]
B
Anybody saw that you'll know why Bill Clinton escaped the whole Monica Lewinsky thing, even though he said it depends on what is, is, is. And I never had sex with that woman. I never did. I never had sex with that woman. But he escaped, Escaped it. And you can see why they were both there and why everybody hated Hillary. She was contrite, she was grouchy, she screamed, she yelled, she attacked the questioner. And she got up in the huff and left because Representative Bobbitt had taken a picture and then they were going to film it anyway. I don't know when they released it, but she came across as a very unlikable person. Person and her whole. But they had the goods on him. He had gone like 27 flights and there's pictures of him giving, you know, back Rubs and he's in a pool. And he was just, I don't know what happened there. I, I, I never have been attracted to younger women, at least younger than I am. And you think, well, Monica was your age and all the rest of them, Kathleen, Willie, and maybe she was. And then, and then he, they give him the file with pictures and everything and right in front of the committee, he's looking at it and you can see, oh wow. It's like he wants to say, I forgot about those good old days.
- [77:52]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [77:52]
B
And then that, that very good lawyer, she grabs it from him and takes it away in front of everybody. And he's like, what the, Let me take a look at that. And he starts pulling back, he starts licking, sticking his fingers to flip the pages. Oh wow. And he's, he's laughing. Then they were asking these really sharp self incriminating to him questions and getting really, and he didn't get angry? Well, I didn't, I don't know. I just want to say one thing. I don't think, I don't think that Donald Trump, I talked to Donald Trump and you can see how his mind works is like if anything's bad, these people are all Republicans and they're all MAGA people and there's a doj, that's Trump. And when I say that Donald Trump is exempted from any suggestion and he says, I'm not a friend of Donald Trump. It was really a masterful performance. Even though he was a shell of his former self. He used to have such a strong voice and everything. And I know he's had heart problems and I've had this, you know, this anemia and all I thought, wow, do I sound like him now? And that's, Is that my future?
- [79:08]
A
I hope not yet, Victor.
- [79:10]
B
Not yet. Not yet, comrade.
- [79:13]
A
Yeah. It was funny to watch Bill, his voice is, he took the whole thing as a trip through memory.
- [79:19]
B
I didn't like him as a politician. I didn't vote for him. I thought he, I did think he did good things, some of them not a lot, but balanced the budget, etc. He was bad on foreign policy, but he was kind of like Jerry Brown. You can't dislike them. I like Jerry Brown because he was witty, you know what I mean? And he was off the wall and he was really. And there were some things he did that were good in the tradition of his father. But Bill Clinton, who is a different type than Jerry Brown. But what I'm trying to get at, there were Democrats like that, you know what I mean, that were reasonable. You can see that he was Tip o', Neill, you know, and the whole Reagan thing. And they're not there anymore.
- [80:07]
A
No crazies have come out. Well, Victor, we're at the end of the podcast and so we want to look at some of the comments from this time. I went to YouTube and there's a few that were very short here that are kind of representative of the comments broadly. DaveKing9393 said, I love starting my day with Victor. You can't imagine how many people on your comments say, ah, this beginning of the day with Victor is great. And then Harold Richards, 1932 said, this is the best podcast out there. I want everybody to know that. Thank you. From Terrebonne, Oregon. And then a few that were more, a little bit more lengthy. Doc Blalock says, I'm a vet and I've been watching and reading your content for a very long time, but never commented before. I want, I wanted you to know, for what it's worth, that you have been a constant source of knowledge, wisdom and peace to me. Thank you. And that's these, again, are representative. Lots of people are saying that. Mary Price K1P Victor Davis Hansen is brilliant, always has the stats to go up to back up his opinions, and is so very gracious geopolitically. He is on point all the time. And from Paige Sullivan, 60 I so much love the Selma in Victor Hansen. He is a common man with an uncommon mind and spirit. You are a leader for us, for all of us, Dr. Hansen. You make us see that a common, common exterior can house the most complex, brilliant human minds and personalities. I pray for you every day and tell everyone I know about. And that's the other thing that's very broad across all your comments, Victor, is that people are praying for you. So that's.
- [82:07]
B
I want to get well for everybody. I'm trying my best. Did anybody get a secret sleep formula?
- [82:13]
A
Not yet. Not yet.
- [82:14]
B
I only slept four hours because it's, I think a part of it's surgical pain, but it's the heart. It's weird. That was my strength, my heart. I don't mean in a spirit. I mean in a nice sense. I mean in a mechanical sense and all right.
- [82:29]
A
And then t Lindsay 10:07 thank you, Victor. Dr. Hansen, sorry for putting this crazy world into perspective with knowledge, intelligence, wisdom and your interesting life experiences along with some good humor. The boat story is hilarious. And then this is what I liked about this comment. P s I'm a lefty and My handwriting is terrible, so I won't be writing you a letter in incursives, LOL.
- [82:59]
B
We have about 800 or 900 letters that have come, and I'm going through every one of them and I cannot believe it. The handwriting, it's just beautiful. And they're so well written. Not a grammatical mistake. It's a whole generation of people who. A lot of them are from the inland areas of California or upstate New York or the Midwest or the South. So they are. I mean, they're really an exceptional group. And they have all these stories that I read about. I read. I try to read about 20 a night. You know, I was in Korea, Choi sun reservoir. And I'm 87, and I just had my second cancer tumor and I'm too grouchy to die. And don't worry, Victor. My wife and I had two cancer operations at Stanford, were still kicking. They're very encouraged. You said about Selma. I'll just. And I think I mentioned it once, that when I graduated with a PhD, I got done very quickly and there were no jobs in 1980, and my grandmother was living here. So I moved in with my grandmother and my crippled aunt. Oh, she had just died. And I tried to help on the farm for what I thought would be summer, but There was like 17 jobs in the United States and there were 4,000 people applying for them. So I think I mentioned. But there was a very prominent classicist, and he was the main person that wrote. And he wrote something. And this guy at the Naval Academy said, I'd like to hire you, but I need to look at what he wrote. And so I had it sent to Hanson Enterprises. And it was so funny because he said he raced through the exams. I thought that would be good, didn't you? You know, bam, bam. There's 12 of them, you know, Greek literature, Greek history, Roman literature, Roman history, Greek composition, Roman Latin composition, oral. He raced through the exam as if they were hurdles. They were hurdles. As if he wasn't comfortable being here when we were trying to create a scholar. But his. This is what I'm getting now. His somewhat rustic and rural background prevented him from appreciating the full range of intellectualism. And therefore, while we are very impressed with his philology and knowledge, we're a little concerned that he would be problematic for a hire in your department. And so he didn't know that I read that. So I came back and I couldn't get a job. So I happened to bump into him and he didn't know that I'd Looked at it. So I said, what is. You think I'm a rustic? And he said, yes. And I said, what would that mean? He said, well, you obviously never grew up speaking French or German. You knew there were requirements for classes. I said, yeah, I studied them. I passed the exam. I can read both of them. And he said, yeah, that's not the point. And I said, what is the point? He said, the point is to be able to speak it, to go to international symposium and converse in French and to go to the opera and maybe know some Italian. And you never went to a Sunday opera. You weren't an intellectual. You have no idea of classical music. And I said, you know the difference between an 8N and a 9N? And he said, no. And I said, I am Pretty sure the 8N didn't have the fully automatic PTO, but how about the 9N and the Jubilee? You know what a difference a tractor has when it has overhead valves. That was my grandfather's greatest moment, when he bought a Ford Jubilee with overhead valve. And he said, I don't have any idea what you're talking about. I am not interested. So I was a rustic, but I tried to smooth. He said that we're here to smooth your rough edges. And I'm not making fun of him because they were marvelous generation of philologists. I really learned Latin and Greek from both of them. But they were. That year there was a kid from the steel mills of Pennsylvania, Jeff Sellers, and he left, but he was from the lower middle classes, working class. And there was a brilliant guy mentioned before, Lawrence Woodlock, who had been a Green Beret in Vietnam. And there was me. And when they looked at. They didn't know who we were. They just looked at our files. When they had admitted this, they just, we are never going to do this at Stanford. Let in a former Green Beret that worked with the Mongs, who was wounded and was be meddled, heroic, a true American hero who was a philological genius. And a guy from the steel mills around Cleveland and a guy from a farmer south of Fresno. They just. And. And we kind of played up that too. We were just.
- [87:50]
A
Yeah. And so it probably never happened again.
- [87:53]
B
I don't think it ever happened again. I think they thought this was. Oh, man, we can't do this.
- [87:59]
A
This is the end of the time. Well, Victor, thank you very much. And thank you to the audience for joining us on this Saturday or any day after that that you choose to join us.
- [88:08]
B
Thank you, Victor, thank you very much for listening and viewing. Viewing. Yeah.
- [88:13]
A
Yep. And this is Sammy Wink and Victor Davis Hansen. And we're signing off.
- [88:17]
B
Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like share and subscribe. 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, Jackson Hewitt handles your taxes and your stress. Inhale Our no surprise price of 149 or less. Exhale Paying more for complicated taxes you won't inhale new tax tax law knowledge. Exhale. Missing out on your biggest refund? Certainly not. Don't miss paying 149 or less. Rest easy. Jackson Hewitt's got your taxes. Guaranteed limited time offer for new clients on federal terms. Participating locations only. Turns@jacksonhewitt.com 149.