Victor Davis Hanson: A US Ground War With Iran Would Be Costly and Likely Unnecessary

Summary

Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words Episode: "A US Ground War With Iran Would Be Costly and Likely Unnecessary" Host: Jack | Guest: Victor Davis Hanson Date: March 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features Victor Davis Hanson's wide-ranging commentary on American cultural and political life, with a special focus on foreign policy, US-Iran tensions, domestic political strategies, and the importance of preserving Western cultural values. Drawing on his historian’s expertise, Hanson analyzes the troubling prospect of US military engagement with Iran, addresses contemporary cultural self-doubt in America, and explores policy and leadership failures at home. The discussion is rich in historical analogies, personal anecdotes, and practical policy suggestions, all delivered in a thoughtful but candid tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Value of Western Tradition and Fragile Nations

• Victor reflects on the resilience and cultural achievements of countries like Greece, Cyprus, the Kurds, Armenians, and Israel:

  “They have these wonderful historical traditions, this wonderful literature, this wonderful… religions and they’re trying to keep a coherent, identifiable culture. And we have the same thing here. I don’t think it’s based on race. I think it’s based on the Western tradition and the American variant of it.” (00:30)

• Sense of gratitude for supportive messages from listeners and the importance of institutional giving:
  • Recommends the Hoover Institution, Hillsdale College, and Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy as worthy causes for philanthropy. (02:33-07:34)
  • Highlights the establishment of the Susanna Mary Hansen scholarship at Pepperdine. (06:26)

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2. Iran Crisis & US Policy Options

[Timestamp: 11:55 – 18:32]

• Victor outlines potential US policy responses to Iran’s actions, including regime change, containment, and periodic military strikes:

  “There’s about three alternatives… The first is, I think, what everybody wants, and that is a regime change... The second alternative... we’re going to do so much damage to the military that they will not be able to... Keep the Straits of Hormuz open, let oil prices settle down and take out the leadership.... The third... we feel that everything is sort of in rubble, that’s military, and... we just at some arbitrary point say I’m done, I’ve set them back for 10 years, 5 years, 8 years and you guys can go build your tunnels again.” (12:27-18:32)

• Critiques any US intervention being heavy-handed, emphasizing conflict between hurting the regime while sparing the Iranian people:

  “You can’t hit the water supply, you cannot hit the sewage, you cannot hit the power, because you’ll hurt people. We have to be very selective...” (12:27)

On Possibility of US Ground War:

• On Trump’s “boots on the ground” comment:

  “I think that’s art of the deal rhetoric, though. I think his point was that you’re never going to tell the enemy what you’re not going to do.” (21:38)

• Sees ground operations as both costly and unnecessary:

  “They’re not worth… American lives going in there and fighting those people. But with air power, you can confine the losses.” (24:48)

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3. On American & Western Cultural Self-Critique

[Timestamp: 50:20 – 62:08]

• Victor draws historical parallels with the decline of Rome and classical warnings about material comfort leading to cultural decadence:

  “We were warned about that in classical literature, poets like Catullus, he said luxus will ruin you... The combination of free consensual government, free speech is wonderful... but you have to have some constraints on your appetites and your country has to... That’s what destroys Western civilization.” (50:45)

• Critique of American guilt and self-flagellation undermining the capacity to defend and preserve its tradition:

  “The other thing… it’s wonderful that we’re self-critiquing… But it gets to a limit and then it becomes self-destructive.” (51:15) “Diversity is... I don’t think so. Our strength is our unity. And… there’s only been two or three multiracial democracies in the modern world our size…” (54:48)

• On immigration and assimilation:

  “If they want to leave that culture, then you have a responsibility to teach them to assimilate, integrate and acculturate so they can not be poor. But if you don’t have confidence in your own society...” (54:48)

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4. Domestic Politics: Democrats’ Strategies and Cultural Tensions

• Analysis of political figures concealing true policy positions to win elections, specifically among Democrats:

  “The Democratic Party as it’s now constituted has an agenda that no one wants… so then there’s only two solutions if you want to retain or acquire power. One, you have to import a new constituency… or you can hide who you are and you run as a James Carver, good old boy or working man.” (30:59)

• Criticism of hypocrisy in political media and attacks on Republican women versus Democrats:

  “Whether he knows it or not, she [Zoran Mandami's wife] is the first lady of New York... I wish they had had that reservations when they went after Melania Trump.” (27:10)

• Frustration at progressives’ lack of accountability on security and border issues:

  “Well, you heard Victor folks… the same people call me. ‘I really want to do something for Victor’...” (09:24) “Nobody wants open borders. Nobody wants 12 million illegal aliens in four years. Nobody wants high crime. Nobody wants critical race theory, critical legal theory.” (30:59)

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5. California & Economic Policy

[Timestamp: 43:33 – 50:20]

• Breakdown of the negative effects of “billionaire tax” proposals in California:

  “If this act goes in, this referendum wins, it will cost the state 24.7 billion. So it won’t raise any money…” (44:02, quoting Josh Rauh/Hanson’s summary of Hoover Institution report)

  • Addresses out-migration of billionaires and enumerates ongoing California governance failures under Gavin Newsom.

• Victor’s economic philosophy:

  “There are certain people among us that have certain... skill sets and they know how to make money. And there is a finite existential limit on what you can do with money.” (45:36) “The problem with radical democratic societies that America had to watch was that people would rather be equal and poor off than better off and have some people more equal than they are.” (45:36)

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6. On Agriculture, Lawfare, and Rural America

[Timestamp: 76:27 – 82:55]

• Discussion of “agricultural lawfare” targeting farmers and ranchers—a bureaucratic and regulatory onslaught:

  “The farmer is at the bottom of the pyramid. He can’t say, I’m going to pass on the cost to what. No, he fights the. The farmer and the rancher fight the weather, they fight the market, they fight labor, they fight inflation. They fight. It hits them first.” (77:19)

• Personal reminiscence on farming’s economic challenges and the character of agricultural America:

  “I know a lot of people who are farmers and ranchers and they’re wealthy on paper, right?... And that’s what these, all these farmers are in that…” (76:33 - 77:19)

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7. Leadership Commentary: Kristi Noem & Brooke Rollins

Kristi Noem ([64:40 – 73:41])

• Victor critiques the South Dakota governor for image management and mishandling controversies, contrasting her to the professionalism of others (namely Brooke Rollins). Expresses disappointment in Noem’s failure to adhere to her previous rooted persona and traditional values.

  “She needs to get back to her original roots as a decoden and a family… wife and kids. And I’m not saying…I hope she does with family, husband, nuclear family, farm ranching. But then with Corey Lewandowski, she kind of morphed into an urban creature.” (64:40-67:27)

Brooke Rollins ([75:04–76:27])

• Holds up Rollins as an example of professionalism and effective representation in government roles, especially in defending rural and agricultural interests.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the cost of ground war with Iran:

  “They’re not worth… American lives going in there and fighting those people. But with air power, you can confine the losses.” — Victor Davis Hanson (24:48)

• On diversity and Western identity:

  “Our strength is our unity. And there’s only been two or three multiracial democracies in the modern world our size… It’s very difficult. And so when you’re going to open the gates of Western civilization and bring in all these people with antithetical views to it… you should be happy. And when you think about it very quickly, and I’ll shut up, all these other early generations that we damn now... if you read what they actually wrote, they thought they were doing this for somebody else. That is the people who followed them. They thought they were making civilization out of the wilderness. And they were trying to make a better society… And they succeeded.” (54:48)

• On criticism of contemporary political leaders:

  “You gave [Tim Walz] a pickup, he wouldn’t know the difference between the radiator and the gas cap.” — Victor Davis Hanson (32:15)

• On the place of farmers in American society:

  “Of all, farmers and ranchers are something else. They’re very smart people and they work hard and they don’t get any recognition.” (82:50)

• On gratitude and community:

  “I have no idea because I’m not. Part of my problem is that I'll be very quick and I'll end. But after June or July, whatever I had was starting to really affect me…I didn't have the energy and I just kind of thought, are anybody listening to these podcasts? ... I really appreciate it and I'll try to keep going.” (85:32)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment Description | |-------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:30 | Reflections on fragile nations and Western identity | | 11:55–18:32 | Iran crisis: policy options, morality, and the cost of regime change | | 21:38–24:48 | Why a ground war with Iran is unlikely and undesirable | | 27:10–34:34 | Domestic politics: social media, Democrat strategies, cultural tensions | | 43:33–50:20 | California’s economic woes and billionaire tax analysis | | 50:20–62:08 | Cultural decadence, classical analogies, the dangers of excessive self-doubt | | 64:40–73:41 | Leadership ‘types’: Kristi Noem, image, and professionalism | | 75:04–82:55 | Brooke Rollins, agricultural lawfare, and rural America | | 85:32–86:39 | Listener messages, gratitude, and closing remarks |

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Tone & Style

• Language: Erudite but accessible; personal, anecdotal, and often impassioned.
• Style: Richly historical, candid, and sometimes wry/sardonic when assessing political folly.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

This episode is an insightful, wide-reaching meditation on where the United States stands both as a power on the world stage (especially regarding Iran) and as a civilization wrestling with its own strengths and doubts. Hanson urges careful, restrained foreign policy, champions the merit of sustaining Western values against corrosive cultural guilt, and insists that good leadership and healthy institutions require both historical perspective and groundedness in reality. The conversation is punctuated by memorable personal stories, direct policy critique, and an undercurrent of concern for preserving the best of American tradition against both foreign and domestic threats.

Transcript

[Jack]

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[Announcer]

home or on the go.

[Jack]

Stay connected when it counts. Stream Fox News on Fox 1. Download today.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I really admire the Greeks, I admire the Cypriots, I admire the Kurds, the Armenians. I admire the Israelis because they're all fragile people and they have these wonderful historical traditions, this wonderful literature, this wonderful, as I said, religions and they're trying to keep a coherent identifiable culture. And we have the same thing here. I don't think it's based on race. I think it's based on the Western tradition and the American variant of it. If you don't believe in that or you feel guilty about it, then you're going to destroy it. We've seen what the alternative of is south of the border. We've seen it in Asia, we've seen it in Africa and it's not pretty.

[Jack]

Well, hello ladies and hello gentlemen and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. And we're fortunate today because we do actually have Victor Davis Hansen here who's going to share his own words of wisdom. It is Saturday, March 7th. This episode will be up on Tuesday the 10th. This podcast is on YouTube and audio, all platforms and is sponsored run by the Daily Signal where Victor also has another gig. Victor Davis Hansen and a few words and he's been pumping those out back in the full saddle there, right? Four times a week. Victor's doing that twice a week here. Victor is the Martin and Lee Anderson senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and he's also a sen contributor at the Daily Signal. He's got a website, the blade of Perseus. Victorhansen.com, do subscribe $65 a year. Just want to stick your toe in the water. 650. Why would you do that at all? Because Victor twice a week does an exclusive. Does he write exclusive articles for the website and creates one exclusive video. So check it out. You will regret not having done so sooner. Victor, much to talk. Yes sir.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I've had so many. I probably had six or seven hundred letters that came and a lot of people were so friendly. First of all, I never knew I had friends and all of a sudden it was, it really helped me help. It's helping me feel better and especially the prayers and but people say what, what can we do to help? And I'm self sufficient so I don't need any help. I don't mean spiritual help. I need prayer. So that's what you can do to help. But if you want to give things, there's two or three institutions. It's not just that I've been affiliated with them in the presently and in the past, but I think they're really singular. And I think the military history program, the Hoover Institution at Stanford is really preeminent. It's. And you know, we get a lot of criticism at the Hoover, but when you look at, you know, the people who were there, Andrew Roberts, Neil Ferguson, Scott Atlas, John Cochran, there's a lot of solid conservatives, I think people. I hope you. Did you hear Condi Rice, our director, the other day?

[Jack]

I was just going to erase it after you finished it. She was in Washington with the President. So. Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Did you see her statement, though, on TV about supporting the demilitarization of Iraq, of Iran? It was really good. It was excellent. So I think Hoover Institution is a worthy recipient. And then, of course, I have a soft spot with Hillsdale College. It's a wonderful place. Gosh, I don't think anybody's, you know, I went there, Jack, in the late 90s, first time, or maybe the mid-90s, actually. And it was, you know, it was thriving. But rough around the edges. Yes, rough around the red. The facilities were worn. They were not extensive. The Dalma. And then Larry Arndt took over and my gosh, I think he spent a billion dollars. I shouldn't say he spent. He raised and spent a billion dollars. And then he's added to the endowment. The faculty pay is high. They were teaching me loans or they've got top scholars. Wilford McCray.

[Jack]

Oh, Bill McClay.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, Bill McClay. Paul. Yeah, Brad. That whole science department is excellent. Larry has really turned Hillsdale around. It really. I don't mean that's the wrong word to say. He's really amplified its profile, Victor.

[Jack]

Maybe more.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He took, he took over at a period of deep. That's Trump. No, I take that back. He did turn it around. You got a good point. After George Roach, the scandal and all of that, it was. And you know better than I, because Bill Buckley was on the hiring committee for a while, then he got kind of frustrated with the proceedings. But Larry, really. Yeah, it's a renaissance. And I think it's probably, in my view, it's the best four year undergraduate program in the United States. And the people there are from small town Michigan. I don't mean they're trained there, but they live there. I always like going there. I went there every year. And the only thing I've been very worried about recovery because. Because I've had this kind of heart incident from the second operation. And that would be the one thing that I would really miss if I can't fly and go there. And I have such good friends there. And then there's another one, another person who's really good that you and I know, Jack, is Pete Peterson, the dean of the School of Public Policy. And that's a very worthy cause. And they just. I didn't. I haven't told you this, Jack. They just endowed a scholarship in the name of my daughter, Susanna Hansen, for graduate students there.

[Jack]

Oh, terrific.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah. For anybody who wants to get a master's degree in public policy at Pepperdine. And then it emphasizes rural studies and California studies and politics. The Susanna Mary Hansen.

[Jack]

Because we're going to talk about rural politics later in the show.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, we are. And that was from a very good friend of mine, Terry Giles. He's a wonderful man. He helped endow it. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to

[Jack]

say that or not. I'm so happy for you, Victor. Your daughter was lovely soul.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Pete Peterson, I've been very fortunate in life to know. I mean, I'm so critical of universities, but I was just thinking the other day of college presidents, you know, or people that run things. And Larry Arndt, Max Nikias, the USC who's got a book out. I'm going to be interviewing him next week. And then Pete Peterson, the dean that runs the school. They're all.

[Jack]

Pete is such a genuinely friendly, happy man. He is on the board of directors of the center for Civil Society. You've heard me talk about where I do civil thoughts. Yeah, I know Pete a little. He's happy warrior.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And I did a lot of videos this fall and I felt bad because I stayed at the Pepperdine faculty visiting beach house and I was trying to exercise but. And do the videos I just kept. He was so kind, said, how are you feeling today? And I said, I don't know what this is. It's just sort of weird. I just deep breathe deeply and it doesn't quite come. But he was very solicitous and nice and I liked anyway Hillsdale where I work and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. I know people say Stanford, Victoria, and I'm not as an alumnus of Stanford, I'm not advertising Stanford. I'm talking about the Hoover Institution. It's an independent, at least quasi independent entity.

[Jack]

Well, it's archives too, Victor. People think about Hoover through you and Thomas Sowell and others. But it is a bastion for a scholarship.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, it is. Tom Sowell and John Taylor, John Cochran, Michael Boskin. Josh Rowe has a great article we're going to discuss about the billionaire tax and the effect on the economy. He. Josh is really an underappreciated asset, as is John Cochran is. He's not underappreciated, but he's another great guy. And then Peter Robinson with the uncommon defining. Yeah, uncommon knowledge.

[Jack]

I had a long talk the other day with your buddy John Kogan, also from.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I like John Co. I shouldn't. I should mention John Kogan. John Kogan, he's amazing guy. He's got so much energy. He's in great physical shape. He writes, he's busy. He was a very good advisor on the economy, at least on entitlements to George W. Bush. So there's just so many people there and.

[Jack]

Well, you heard Victor, folks. You want to find an outlet for your. For your love. And I, Victor, the same people call me. I really want to do something for Victor like Shraga, our great friend Shraga Kar says, what can I do?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, people send me things. I get pictures and photographs and books. That's fine. I. I just don't. There's so many worthy causes in education that they should send you some almonds. Yeah, I try to raise money as much as I can for. For Hillsdale and Hoover and, And I think, you know, given the status of higher education, I mean, I don't think people quite realize sometimes when they talk to me about Hoover that for the director of the Hoover Institution, Condoleezza Rice, to come out wholeheartedly in support on the Stanford campus or for Scott Atlas to bravely say that the lockdown does not get censored by the Stanford faculty or Neil Ferguson to stagestan or when they went after me, it's a hostile environment there except for this atoll. So it's worth saving, it's worth promoting, it's worth enhancing. So is Hillsdale and so is the School of Public Policy.

[Jack]

All right, folks, you have your marching orders. So now we're going to victim. We have two topics we mentioned. We're going to talk about Iran also. Maybe we'll talk about Tucker. We'll get into all this when we come back from these initial important messages.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Since the founding of America 250 years ago, many things have changed, but some things never do. The commitment of husband and wife, the importance of passing along our values to

[Announcer]

our children, the faithfulness of God Some wonder how we can ensure America will

[Victor Davis Hanson]

continue to thrive as long as we keep first things first. We've only just begun. America the Beautiful.

[Jack]

We are back with Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. So Victor, you talked at great length with the great Sammy Wink on the most recent episode about what was happening in Iran. And again, folks, you know we're recording on Saturday. This episode's up Tuesday. Lord knows the big one hasn't happened yet. Whenever the big one is going to be, I don't know what it is but as far as I can tell,

[Victor Davis Hanson]

the big thing in our Iran, you mean?

[Jack]

Yeah, the big thing.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I think it's going to be the mother of all bombs, the Moab. And I think it's going to go down, down, down into the subterranean factories that are making the drones and missiles. Just my speculation.

[Jack]

Well, is there anything more you want to say about Iran? Or maybe we can use this as a forum also to talk about the most recent comments by Tucker Carlson critical of Israel, an ugly country or something to that effect.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Anyway, I don't understand that at all. It's the frequency I can see if he feels that way he could make. But on this show we have so many different topics, but we don't focus on just one topic. But he seems to fixate on that and that's so ironic because of all the 20 some nations in the Middle east, it's the only democratic, non dictatorial, open, transparent society and it's the only place, I mean, and then to focus on Christians, the treatment of Christians when they, they're in enclaves or they have, they have secondary status if that in most of the Arab countries and they're flocking to Israel where they have religious liberty. And then when you look at I always when they say, well, Jenna's I would just say to what were you supposed to do after October take away October 7th. And we wouldn't be in any of these wars and I, Iran would have, you know, would have been close to getting a bomb, let's face it, somebody. But they precipitate it because they funded Hezbollah and Hamas that and they knew about the planning and nothing they say you can trust just a fact. And then it's well, as far as a war, it's very tricky, Jack, because they have to take out the infrastructure of the military and that's the bases, the barracks, the planes, the transportation, the command and control. But they feel that the Iranian people you feel, I feel are captives of this murderous government. So that means you can't do things that you did in most wars. You can't hit the water supply, you cannot hit the sewage, you cannot hit the power, because you'll hurt people. So we have to be very selective, and it's possible now, given satellite imagery's fantastic progress where you can see almost anything and then these precision drones and precision weapons. So they have to keep taking out the leadership. So they establish a principle, and they're starting to see news reports about it, that if some of these barracks and regional commands don't have their senior commanders, because it's. If I could use it. Kind of a macabre contrast. If somebody in Iran said, I'm taking out all the conservative columnists in the United States with drones, and I saw a lot of my colleagues taken out, I would. I hope I would stay there, but I would be looking up at the skies every five minutes. And that's the kind of atmosphere they're creating. And so. But they have to be careful, because if you do too much damage, then the people who have just been slaughtered to the tune of 30,000 protesters shot, they're going to. It'd be just like here in the United States if some sympathetic power was trying to help us, but they were destroying infrastructure. We would be ambiguous about their help. So it's a really tricky business. And there's about three alternatives that can occur, Jack. The first is, I think, what everybody wants, and that is a regime change. And that would mean that at some point, the regular army, and not the Quds Force, the revolution, guard any of those people, they would stand up and say, I don't want this anymore. It's not working. And they would feel confident enough that the people would support them, and then they would take control in a transitory government. And then you would have, in six months, an interim person. It might be the Shah, son. It might be these dissident groups that are formally organized in France and Europe to come in, people from the United States, people indigenous inside Iran, and they would have a revolutionary Congress. I don't like the word revolutionary, but they would have an interim government of parliament, and then they would have elections. That would be the ideal situation. The second alternative is less favorable, but it's more likely, and that is we're going to do so much damage to the military that they will not be able to. Well, I think we can do this. Keep the Straits of Hormuz open, let oil prices settle down and take out the leadership. And then someone with, unfortunately ties to the old regime may come forward and say, I will serve. Kind of like I would call that the Venezuela solution, right where you don't put, you can't put troops on the ground. There is some argument for that but the MAGA doctrine says taboo. And after Afghanistan and Iraq it would not be politically viable. But you could have a dissident person or a person who promises not to bring back the theocracy and you would watch him like we're doing in Venezuela and you would tell him if you'd start to bring back or rearm, we're going to do what we did twice. The third time it's going to be the end of you if you want to do that. The third is the least palatable. But it could happen and that means that we do this another two or three weeks and we feel that everything is sort of in rubble. That's military. We don't really worry about the government and, and we do what we did in 2025, we just at some arbitrary point say I'm done, I've set them back for 10 years, 5 years, 8 years and you guys can go build your tunnels again, do everything. But we're going to keep mowing the lawn, we'll keep doing this and not worry about the government. I think obviously the first solution is the most difficult and the most desirable. The second one is more likely but we could live with it. And the third one, I'm not sure, I'm not sure if that regime stays, you know, it'll be, it'll be problematic.

[Jack]

I want to ask you about boots on the ground there Victor but first I need to make

[Victor Davis Hanson]

to pay our

[Jack]

bills a little bit here. So folks who are watching this on YouTube or rumble can can see over my, what would be my left shoulder. There's a, there's a machine behind me. Usually this kind of machine people would keep in their kitchen but I keep it here in my office. It's a cove pure. I love it. You know a lot of people are now we have some perspective on, on our resolutions to lose weight and what happened to us over the holidays. So for a lot of folks one of the solutions to remedy to reform was consume more water, drink more water. So you know, folks early in the year buy supplements, they try new diets, workouts. But again the most important basic thing people should have is water and good water because even mild hydration impacts our energy focus, metabolism. And when you think about all the garbage that's in our water, you're starting behind the curve before you even begin. So about covpure it changes that immune immediately its clearwave Technology is Certified to remove 99.9% of contaminants. Pretty much anything that isn't water is taken out. Pfas, microplastics, pharmaceutical residue, fluoride, all of that gets removed and it's the purest water you can get. I love Covpure because it doesn't have a taste. People say, oh, this tastes great. Well, it tastes, it's refreshing. It doesn't have a taste. When I fill my little kettle, Victor, to bring it into the. Put it in the well in the machine when I'm pouring it, pouring the water in from my faucet in Connecticut with all the funk that you could smell this aroma of bleach or something in the water. So Cove Pure gets rid of all that when you drink it. It's delicious because it has no taste. Hot, you want it hot, you want it cold, you want it room temperature, you want 16 ounces, 4 ounces. Make tea, make. I use it for everything. Ice cubes, drinking water, we're cooking, making soup. Co pure. Love it. So now, folks, it's very easy to get pure water with the push of a button with your co Pure. So make an additional New Year's resolution, make a St. Patrick's Day resolution and make it stick. Improve your health with clean water. Right now, you can get $200 off for a limited time if you use the link that we have here. It's covpour. C o v e p u r e.com v d h again covpure.com C-O-V e p u r e.com do vdh and start, start getting right with water. So we thank the good people from COVID Pure for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, I saw some headline about Trump, Donald Trump, implying that maybe there would be boots on the ground. Was I reading something that Trump actually said or people?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

No, he said that. I think that's art of the deal rhetoric, though. I think his point was that you're never going to tell the enemy what you're not going to do. But I think he understands that there's 20%, 85% of the Republican party support what he's doing. According to polls, 50, 50 of the American people in some polls, some not so favorable, but ground troops. I think we should remember a little bit why we went into Iraq and Afghanistan from the get go on the ground. We had tried the air campaign in the 91 war for weeks on end and it was very successful. But we thought that it would force Saddam out of Kuwait and it did not. And people then made the judgment you have to go on the ground. So there was a four day ground victory, just four days. And that would have been impossible without air power. Air power had done most of the work. But the point was they did not get Saddam out. They could have, but they didn't. And so we got back in and then we had a combined from the very beginning ground. And that worked spectacularly well in getting rid of the Taliban and regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the second half nation building, not so much. So in reaction to that, I think people said, you know, 20 years in Afghanistan and we still have people In Iraq after two, it's been 23 years and there's still American installations in Iraq. Let's not go do that was what Trump called forever war or endless war. And so that's why he was very careful with the Soleimani hit and the ISIS hit and the Wagner group and the retaliation against the Houthis and the first strike against Iran and 2025 and the nuclear facilities that these were all delineated as one offs. And you know, he would do it and say, well, they had to get it out of their system. So I let them, you know, have a performance art retaliation or this is a one off or we want to make Iran great. But this time it's been, the stakes are much higher. But I still don't think that ground troops, although they might, might be justified. You go in a country of 90 million people that's that big and you'll have some, you'll have Fallujahs and all that stuff in the streets. There's still three or four hundred thousand of those revolutionary fanatic armed militias. And you can hurt them a lot more without they're not worth to quote Bismarck who said that the Balkans were not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier. They're not worth American lives going in there and fighting those people. But with air power, you can confine the losses.

[Jack]

Victor, when we come back from these important messages and we will get your thoughts on two things and we have other things to discuss. One is the first lady of New York and her the comments that have been found her related to October 7th and then Democrat congressmen, many of them voting no on a resolution on Iran. And we'll get your thoughts on those and other those topics and other things when we come back from these important messages.

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[Jack]

We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words on the Daily Signal network. So Victor, the first, first subject, Zoran Mandami's wife, Ramadawaji, I think she's pro massacre on Twitter following the October 7th slaughter of Israelis. She tweeted or on Instagram, excuse me, she liked these photos of dead bodies, of slaughtered bodies. So these posts have been found. And then this is I'm reading now from New York Post article, the Democrat Socialist. This is the mayor, 34, was confronted during an unrelated event about his 28 year old artist spouse liking Instagram posts that shared graphic imagery of the terror group's murderous rampage in hours after the attack. So this is right after it was happening. And she trumpeted anti Israeli rhetoric. And this is reported by the Jewish Insider. And Mandami says his trying to push back. My wife is the love of my life. She's also a private person who's held no formal position on my campaign or in my city hall. But she's very much not a private person. Victor, lots of COVID stories on her.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Whether he knows it or not, she is the first lady of New York. That is her role. And I wish they had have had that reservations when they went after Melania Trump. Remember she had that T shirt that said I just don't care. And they hounded her. She went in for a minor operation. They claimed that she had been spousally abused. They did everything to her and she didn't say one thing that was political. Nothing. But she was by definition the first lady of the United States. Well, so Mondami should have thought of that before. But the key thing to remember here is the timing. This was not 21 to 27 days after October 7th when Israel went first with air and then with ground troops. This was immediately after at a time when nobody knew when or if Israel, well, they were going to respond, but nobody knew that for sure. And here her first instinct is to glorify in the death of 1200 civilian aged women and children, Jews that were slaughtered by 3,000 Hamas armed gunmen, militia terrorists with 6 to 800 tag along people that heard that you could go in and rape Jews and rob them and desecrate them and steal from them and let's go. One of the most cowardly attacks that we've seen in the Middle east. And she's there claiming justification for it. So we know that she said other things. And if she's not a political person, she doesn't put that toxic stuff out on social media. And she's identified as the first lady of New York City. He knows it because he said things not quite as toxic, but it's pretty clear that the people that he's hired have said things about Jews. And he has too. And this is. He's not even six months into his tenure. And I think people are going to realize something about the left. It's a little bit. They can pull it off, Jack, if they get smart like Spanberger did the governor of Virginia when they run as well. I am a CIA agent and I'm the son of a law enforcement person and I'm a. A moderate Democrat. And then you look at her congressional record and she's way out there with aoc or you see Tallah Rico thinking he can pull it off. The now putative Democratic. Well, he is the Democratic candidate for Senate and he thought he would veneer himself because he is a supposed evangelical, a man of Christ and he was going to pose middle class, a white man of the people, white working class and Christian. And then we start to see that he couldn't quite pull it off. Well, now he is. But when he gets into God is non binary and there's a white virus and white people kill people, then he didn't hide very well who he is. Kamala Harris tried it. The most successful has been spanned River Mondami and his wife obviously can't pull it off. They're trying. But here's the point. The Democratic Party as it's now constituted has an agenda that no one wants. Nobody wants open borders. Nobody wants 12 million illegal aliens in four years. Nobody wants high crime. Nobody wants critical race theory, critical legal theory. Nobody wants dei, Nobody wants transgendered stuff, men competing in women's sports. Nobody wants the Kabul foreign policy. Nobody wants the balloon foreign policy, the Chinese balloon. Nobody wants

[Jack]

voter ID laws.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You know, people want. Remember that. Don't. What are you going to say to Putin or what? Don't. Comella said that and so did nobody wants that. So then there's only two solutions if you want to retain or acquire power. One, you have to import a new constituency. And we now have 53 million people. Who were not born in the United States, many of them citizens, but the vast majority of them, I think 30 million would be a fair estimate. 30. 30 illegal aliens. The left always says there's only 11 million. That's been solidified for about 20 years. And yet Yale University researchers, I think, what 10 years ago said that there was 21 million based on their estimates of W2s and security forms and stuff. And then he added 10 to 12. So there was probably 30 million. So you can bring in a new constituency, which they tried, or you can hide who you are and you run as a James Carver, good old boy or working man. We saw Tim Waltz that I can relate to. Guys that have a beer and they were in the military and I work on their trucks. You know, he couldn't. You gave him a pickup. He wouldn't know the difference between the radiator and the gas cap. So that's what they do. And Talarico did it pretty well. And he's got such a record that I think he's going to be a. I don't think he has a chance of winning once they get the full record out there. He's got a lot more money. But anyway that the Democratic playbook is to get the technocratic business elite to give them money and then they feign like they're moderate and then they get into power. And as we saw with Spanberger, she's raising taxes on anybody. We've had this horrific murder in Virginia and yet ICE will not be contacted. Virginia authorities will not work with ice. And she's got a more liberal. She's got as liberal or more so than Jasmine Crockett voting record. But she comes across as a good old girl.

[Jack]

That's as she was the one that. After the. Was after I think the 20, I think it was 2016. Anyway, she was complaining about being soft on. On cops or defund the police. She was one of the leaders internally of the Democrats. But then she's governing. Yeah, there's not much room air between her and Jasmine Crockett and others.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And Heather, it's probably more liberal than aoc. And that's what they do. And that's what James Carville told him to do. He said basically, don't talk about who you are, talk about what you think people want you to be. And then we saw that with Joe Biden. That was what so old. Remember 2020. We hear these nuts like Buttigieg and Spartacus and the Castro brother and Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and Kamala. Nobody wanted them. And Then all of a sudden they said, well, there's good old Joe Biden from Scranton. Remember him? He was hard on. He said all these things. He's one of us. He's just a working class. No he wasn't. In his case it was worse because it was non compos mentes and they used this wax and effigy and then they had their Obama puppeteers and they went harder. That was the most left wing four years in this country since the beginning of the great the new Deal. So anyway, that's what they're going to do and that's what they're trying to do with all of these candidates.

[Jack]

Well, we'll talk a little more in a minute or you'll get your opinion in a minute about some other Democrat insanities. But first, Victor, this year marks a critical moment for our country as the opposition grows more aggressive and unapologetic. The fight now reaches into the everyday decisions we make. Patriot Mobile has been standing on the front lines fighting for freedom for more than 12 years. They don't just deliver top tier wireless service. They're activists like us 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 carriers. 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 the promo code VDH for a free month of service. Don't wait, that's patriotmobile.com VDH or Call 972-PATRIOT. And we thank the good people at Patriot Mobile for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, I'm going to read a headline and a little chunk of an article. I think I got this from Breitbart. 53 House Dems vote no on declaring Iran a state sponsor of terrorism. The resolution from the article said nothing about President Trump's strikes on Iran while saying the regime, quote, remains the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism and provides substantial financial and military support to groups including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. And it added that it, the resolution added it poses a direct and persistent threat to the United States and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American citizen. The resolution also made note that Iran backed proxy militias are responsible for the deaths of at least 603 U.S. service members in Iraq. Victor I remember kind of at the end of his commentating career, Norman Podarat said, it's this simple for me. Either you're for America or you're against America. And we have at least 53 Democrats in the House. It seemed like they're against America. Probably more your thoughts?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, I mean that was what the State of the Union was, was try to put them on the spot or you, your first empathies with Americans are illegal aliens. And in Virginia Spanberger doesn't seem to be worried about, I guess in her policies when you have horrific murders by an illegal alien, you think that she would snap to it, change your policy.

[Jack]

You saw that video of Senator Warner also.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes. And Senator Warner, he, as you pointed out, I mean his whole idea was, I guess you'd call what he said, collateral damage. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, you know, the borders open, you get collateral damage, you're going to mush your hair up a little bit, no big deal. But you know, it's much worse than. And then he got kind of in a cul de sac of his own making. He said, you know, they haven't, some people haven't even committed a crime. And he kind of looks, his eyes spin. Well, except they were here illegally. Except that's the primary criterion. They came in illegally. You know, it was very funny when I was a student in 1973 and four, the Greek government was very strict. It was under very repressive government. But, but even that policy hasn't changed much. And you could only stay, I think it was 90 days in the country unless you applied for a student visa and the school helped you get it. But you had to go down and answer questions. It was a cumbersome thing. So a lot of people said, I'm just going to go out of the country. I'll fly to Turkey for 12 bucks on Turkey's air, go to Izmir, come back and that will be it. And so we were about four of us were going to go to Turkey and one guy had not done that and it was about 120 days. Ah, they won't care. I said, you don't have a visa, you've been in the country 30 days illegally. And he said, ah, I guess nothing. So we get there and they just where is your visa? You have been in our country, you've Overstayed, you are not welcome these last 40 days. And they took him into a room and they said, you are going to pay a fine, but you're going to have to leave the country and go back to your home country. Or you can apply for a punitive. And he had to pay a huge fine. He had to spend the whole day with immigration and he didn't get to go to Turkey. Boo hoo. Yeah.

[Jack]

Did you see the Greeks are.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

This is totally different.

[Jack]

But you mentioned Greece, as you often do. Do you see the shutting, closing mosques

[Victor Davis Hanson]

and

[Jack]

ejecting illegals from their country? I mean, Greece seems very trumpy. And I don't know the current politics of Greece, but seems a little heartening given what else is happening there.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, like Tucker said that it's a part. You know, another thing that I really got angry was Gavin Newsom. Now he is so pandering. We haven't talked about him, but he has made himself into an utter buffoon. He went to the Munich security. Remember he said, you get on knee pads. That was an obscene reference when you kiss up Trump. And then he said that he suffered from dyslexia. And then when Cruz said, no, you're historically illiterate. And then he said, how dare you make fun of my dyslexia. Then he insulted black people and said that basically I'm stupid like you. And by the way, Biden just said that at the Jesse Jackson funeral. That must be a democratic trait, that you go before minority audiences and you think you're going to be condescending. Said, you know, I'm not a bright guy. I'm the stupid. But he, he, there was a little difference. Newsom said, I'm as stupid as you are. And Biden said, said, I'm smarter than people in this room, meaning I'm not that smart, but I'm at least smarter than you people. So they can't hide what is a long democratic attitude toward minorities. But gosh. And then after doing all that, he gives these interviews about foreign policy and he says basically that Israel, he quotes somebody about genocide. He said, well, I just quoted it. And then he said that was an apartheid state, citing the great thinker Thomas Friedman as his source. And then he was even kind of a little bit weird when he said, well, he's Jewish, meaning if a Jewish guy trashes Israel, then I get to do it. I can jump in. So he's just. And then you think, not only are you unfit and stupid, you are right, you're stupid. But the people in that audience you were talking to are mostly all brighter than you are. And not only are you Nepo baby, that everything was handed to you, and now you're masquerading as a poor boy that's trying to emulate J.D. vance's Hillbilly Elegy, I guess you would call it. What,

[Jack]

Hillbilly envy. I don't know.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Hillbilly envy or Nob Hill elegy or Marin county elegy, something like that. But then you think, Can I ask you five questions? Why is gas going to be $8 a gallon after you drove out two big refineries and we don't have the gasoline? Why has the Los Angeles power woman finally been fired and we still haven't rebuilt Pacific Palisades? And you just endorse Karen Bass, that incompetent nincompoop for mayor who was in Uganda while her city was burning. Why do we have the highest gas taxes? Income, third highest, sales, fourth highest sales tax? Why do we have 1 5th to 1 4th of population under the poverty line? And now he's endorsed the billionaire tax.

[Jack]

Can I want to talk about that? I would like to read a little something on that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Absolutely.

[Jack]

I know it's at least one of your colleagues, Joseph Rao. I don't know you if others helped him with this.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Josh Rao. Josh Rao is a great. He's a. He's sometimes underappreciated, but he is a. He worked as the Council of Economic Advisors for Trump's first term. He's very bright and he's meticulous in citing, you know, researching, getting the data, getting it out here.

[Jack]

So he and a few others who may be Hoover colleagues also wrote a very long study. It's called the Fiscal Losses from California's Billionaire Tax Act. And I found this on the Hoover site today. So here's just a section of it says over. So they ran the numbers, all kinds of possibilities. If this tax goes in, he says over 100,000 simulations with varying discount rates, wealth tax revenues, lost income tax revenues, et cetera, et cetera, all kinds of permutations. His the basic study, we find that 71% of the scenarios in which the act is instituted yields a negative. Okay, npv signaling the act would generate a net loss to the state of California, the average. They say if this act goes in, this referendum wins, it will cost the state 24.7 billion. So it won't raise any money. That's how much it's going to lose. And by the way, Victor, also in this article is a chart that Shows. Well, it's already losing money because of the people who. Billionaires who already bailed on the state.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh yeah, I think there's been. Of 30, or was it 30 that were interviewed. 20.

[Jack]

Well they were interviewed, but at least six and six, up to eight have are gone.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I think 20 said they had intended to. Yeah.

[Jack]

And that does not include, by the way, the last thing I'll shut up. It says spillover effects which are lost sales tax, property tax and business activity. So take a bow, Gavin.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, you know, it's sort of like a good metaphor. Simile is so we don't want all these people with billionaires and we want them to pay taxes so we can bring them down. It's like saying I don't want anybody driving a Porsche and if they don't drive Porsches then I feel better that they're like me. And, and you don't realize that there are certain people among us that have certain to quote taken set of skill sets and they know how to make money. And there is a finite existential limit on what you can do with money. You can't make your shower any nicer. Bill Gates can have a 30,000 square foot home but none of us listening would want to have, I don't know, 200 toilets to worry about or to have a bunch of staff people in our house all the time. And I have been driven to the airport by people who are very wealthy and I can tell you that my pickup or my Tesla, it rides just as well as a Mercedes or you name it, Lamborghini. There's, what I'm getting at is there's limitations on our society. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg can have 10 homes, but that's a hassle. Who would want 10 homes? And so the lives and a lot of people don't end up as, you know, very happy with it. So the idea that all our problems are going to be solved by taking money away from these people that have these skills to invest and it does go through the economy and it's not just trickle down. And this is the, this all started and it's always been there in America. Alexis de Tocqueville said that, that the problem with radical democratic societies that America had to watch was that people would rather be equal and poor off than better off and have some people more equal than they are. And I've found that to be true in my life about people. But it's going to impoverish the state. We've got a high speed rail project that's already gone through 30 or 40 billion. It's not going to cost. That was about the cost of it. It's not even to get. It's not going to finish 30%. It's going to be $300 billion if they finish it. And then when they finish it, it's going to lose millions per year just to run it. And you can't hear anybody who interviews Gavin Newsom. All they have to say is, what's with the electricity prices? You have the highest kilowatt charge in the United States. What is it? We have the highest gasoline. Why do you have the highest insurance, home insurance? What happened to the Pacific Palisades? Governor, what's the high speed rail like? Why are you giving money to reparations? Why are you giving money to illegal aliens when you're broke? Why did you give. You make fun of people giving money to Israel to help it survive. But you're a state. You're not a federal government. You gave money to Ukraine. You bragged about it. So he's, in my view, he's the epitome of the whole postmodern problem with Western civilization. You get these very entitled people and they're not very bright, they're not very educated and they look good, they dress good, they have all the hokey parlance. They act like they're smooth, slick, they're media savvy, they're kind of blessed. They've never really been in, you know, he's never been in his. The people that he's governing get up every day and they drive semi trucks, they go out and prune vines, they get on tractors, they get on roofs, they build things. They sit all day in an insurance office. They're clerical people, they work in. They. They know what the world is like. He doesn't. Everything that he has, despite his memoir, has been given to him. And Katie Kirk was interviewing him and said, gosh, is it hard being so good looking? Hey, Katie, why don't you say, is it hard being a governor that took paradise and turned it into purgatory or the inferno? Because that's what you did. And why did you do that? Now he thinks he's going to be. And you know what he thinks he's doing? He thinks he's going to be nominated by hating Israel, going dei, all of that. And then when he gets in the general election, he will go try to do what Kamala Harris did very ineptly, that is. I'm good old Gavin from Single Family and I had wheat bread, wonder bread. That's what we're going to hear.

[Jack]

Yeah, I have a feeling, Victor, some of what you touch on here seem. I just want to plug your series or Perseus. You have started a series the Nature and Cause of Western Self Loathing. And I would think Gavin Newsom and people like him are paradigms of the self loathing class.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We were warned about that in classical literature, poets like Catullus, he said, luxus will ruin you. Catullus to himself, that's luxury. Livy, the great historian of the history of the Roman Republic up to about 30 BC said we can't live with the maladies and we can't live with the correctives or the medicine is as bad as it is. We've got to a point what he was talking about was being hooked on deficit spending, entitlement, personal consumption extravagance. And then everybody knew what you had to do, but you can't do it. And the combination of free consensual government, free speech is wonderful. And you provide that with market capitalism and you create enormous, enormous opportunities for people to have money in the middle class and a lifestyle that everybody in the world, United States takes in more immigrants at least until recently, than all the other states in the world combined. And that's because everybody wants to get here. But it requires a responsibility for people to act in particular ways. That something's legal doesn't mean it's moral to do it. And so you have to have some constraints on your appetites and your country has to. So we have $37 trillion in debt in the defense budget, at least until Trump increases it. And I don't know how he's going to do. We don't have the money, but it's smaller than the interest on the interest of over $1 trillion a year on the debt. And so that's what destroys Western civilization. The other thing that does is it's wonderful that we're self critiquing. If you read classical, just take incident off the top of my head. The Sicilian controversy. Now we're in the era of Iraq. Well, their Iraq and Afghanistan war equivalent of. Yeah, I'm not talking about Iran, but I'm talking about Iraq ground troops. That was the Sicily and, and you should read the criticism of it in Thucydides, in Aristophanes, even in Euripides about the conduct of the Athenian empire in general. And they voted for three generals to go on the campaign. And as soon as they did, they tried to recall one right in the middle of the campaign. They win a battle against The Spartans at Argonusae. Then they put the generals on trial and tried to execute them for not doing as well as they thought and picking up survivors in the water. So my point is that self criticism is good, but it gets to a limit and then it becomes self destructive. And there's something about Christianity saved the west, but it also, it's a sermon on the mount, turn the other cheek. And that's wonderful. And Christian compassion and charity is what makes the Western. It saved it from paganism. But when you read the New Testament, it's not just. Everything is truth and beauty and love. And there's no responsibility, not at all. There's 10 commandments, they're still in effect. There's whipping the people out of the money lenders out of the temple. There's everything in there.

[Jack]

Repent, says the Baptist.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, it's repent. And this idea that you feel good about yourself because you don't put the 30 times convicted criminal in jail and that makes you feel wonderful. Or you let in 12 million people illegally and then some guy who makes $30,000 a year and has to have a heart bypass can't get on because the health system is swarmed. Or the idea that I wouldn't dare tell the homeless what to do and then they freeze to death on the street or they defecate, urinate, inject something fornic right in front of people.

[Jack]

You know it's okay to get slotted on a highway by.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And that is another problem with the West. And then the globalization is a part problem that really hurt the West. The idea that you're going to spread this culture all over the world and then you're going to get these huge markets and you're going to supply all of the technology and then you're going to destroy your borders and then you're, it's, it's, it's not possible. Diversity is. Everybody said our strength is our diverse. I don't think so. Our strength is our unity. And there's only been two or three multiracial democracies in the modern world our size. Brazil maybe in India. And how is that working out with all these different religions, different ra. It's very difficult. And so when you're going to open the gates of Western civilization and bring in all these people with antithetical views to it, who really want to come there only for one reason. To not starve to death or not be in their home countries, but they're not willing to give up their customs that made those countries poor. And you're going to predicate that on feeling guilty. How well that we are all. Why can't. Well, we must have done something because Chiapas and Oaxaca are abject poor. Who made those people so poor? Oh, it was a Mexican War of 1848. We're responsible. No, it's the culture that did that and bringing people without. If they want to leave that culture, then you have a responsibility to teach them to assimilate, integrate and acculturate so they can not be poor. But if you don't have confidence in your own society. You know, when Tucker said that about Israel was corner of them. There's certain little fragile countries in the world that I think all of us have empathy for. And one of them all different. I have a lot of empathy. I know you listen to the Kurds. They never have a country. They're split between Syria and Iraq and Iran and Turkey. They get violent all the time. But they have been very pro American. They have a particular different culture. And it seems like the Arab world or the Islamic world is always attacking them somewhere and they want a unified culture of their own country. And then you look at the Armenia, this Christian country right in the middle of the Islamic world and it has a distinct history. It's the first Christian nation really in the world almost. And it has these Islamic neighbors that want to destroy it, suffered through two genocides and. And they have a huge expatriate part. But it's a country that is unified in the sense that has a one religion, one language and it's vulnerable. And then you look at Israel, that's another one. 11 million people, 10 million people. Cyprus. Yeah, Cyprus. And look at Israel. And everybody said, well, it's our part. No, it's trying to have a dominant culture and a religion and a tradition and it's fragile world. It's not like the United States, it's not like Russia, it's not like China. And it's the custodian of a rich tradition. And then we get to Greece, roughly same population, but 50,000 square miles in a contested area that have. And the Greek people have suffered horrifically in history from Turkish invasions and others. And here they have this country that is 90 was 98% Greek Orthodox, 100% Greek language custodians of this ancient tradition of Hellenism. And then all of a sudden everybody are coming in and they have people within that society say, oh, we're an apartheid society, we're intolerant. We only have one language, we only have one tradition. And these people we got to bring them in. And they're from completely antithetical cultures and they don't have the confidence as Westerners to assimilate, culturate, integrate. And then they wonder why somebody in a mosque is celebrating service like they are in Michigan. The poor Khamenei, he died, he was a hero. This is a man who was a butcher and hates the country that they're in. And we ask nothing of our immigrants to do that. And so that's another problem with the West. It has this guilt ridden, affluent leisure danger that then you don't inculcate, that you're better than the alternative. You don't have to be perfect to be good. And you should be happy. And when you think about it very quickly, and I'll shut up all these other early generations that we damn now, I'm not using that as a cuss word, but we just slander and smear. They're racist, they're transphobic, they're selfish. The people in the covered wagons, the people who settled the northwest, the people who built the country, the railroad, if you read what they actually wrote, they thought they were doing this for somebody else. That is the people who followed them. They thought they were making civilization out of the wilderness. And they were trying to make a better society, a free experiment in self governance, free market, private property. And they succeeded. And for us now to inherit that infrastructure. You know, think about California under Newsom. It's pretty good that you get this picture. I think the RNC or some conservative groups, I don't know if you saw it, Jack, but they're issuing these pictures and we've talked about San Francisco in the 50s and 60s. This one's in the 30s. It's a video and it shows it today. The same places, this very poor society in the 30s and 40s when people were working six days a week, 50 hours a week, they lived in 800 square foot homes. They had one car that was unreliable and their streets are clean. They were well dressed. There's no, you know, if there are homeless, they're at the railroad track. And then you compare it today and the answer is, how can a wealthier, more leisure, more sophisticated, more technologically advanced society be so much more medieval? And the answer is that's what wealth and leisure and, and self criticism to an excessive degree. And no confidence, no knowledge of your culture or the need to preserve it. So I really admire the Greeks, I admire the Cypriots, I admire the Kurds, the Armenians, I admire the Israelis because they're all fragile people. And they have these wonderful historical traditions, this wonderful literature, this wonderful, as I said, religions. And they're trying to keep a coherent, identifiable culture. And we have the same thing here. I don't think it's based on race. I think it's based on Western tradition and the American variant of it. And if you don't believe. Yeah, if you don't believe in that or you feel guilty about it, then you're going to destroy it. And we've seen what the alternative is south of the border. We've seen it in Asia, we've seen it in Africa, and it's not pretty. Be well.

[Jack]

Victor, I'm going to ask you about.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh, my gosh, what's her name? Which one?

[Jack]

Nome.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh, Kristi. Noam.

[Jack]

Kristi Nome. But before I do, before I do, to our listeners and to our viewers, since we're talking about history, 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. And today, America is spending at levels once reserved for wartime. Frichter just mentioned 37 trillion in debt. We've normalized deficits that would have stunned the earlier generations. And policymakers now debate whether the only path forward is more intervention, more printing, more distortion. But here's the historical truth. Every society that pushed its currency beyond discipline eventually paid a price. The wise never waited for collapse, though they prepared for the correction. And that's why so many thoughtful Americans, especially those nearing retirement or into retirement, are reallocating part of their wealth into something that has outlasted every paper of or experiment in human history. Physical gold, not as speculation, but as insulation. And our reputation matters at Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. Which is why we're partnering with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability, and an A rating from the Better Business Bureau. For years, they've guided Americans through transparent education and longstanding relationships built on trust. And right now, they're extending a special liberty offer to our listeners and viewers. To help you get started with with real gold, whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in the bank. If you believe as we do, that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious. Call 844-790-9191. That's 844-790-9191. Or visit protectwithvictor.com 8447-909191-88447. 909191 or visit protectwithvictor.com History rewards those who take the long view. And we're very grateful and thankful that Allegiance Gold is sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Yes, Victor, before we take another little break and we're going to have one, we're going to go long here, folks. We're going to talk about something Brooke Rollins has done after the break. But Kristi Noem, any thoughts that you want to share about her firing and her tenure as head of Homeland Security?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'm baffled by her because I had followed vaguely, I think she was a congressional representative before she became governor and I saw a picture in 2015 or something with her husband. She had no makeup on. She had kind of a shag haircut, short haircut, fresh face. They were very intimate. I don't mean in the sexual sense, but clothes had their arm around. She looked happy. She looked unaffected. And to see her today with those long extensions and facial surgery, it's sad. And she was a very effective governor. So something happened and that happened might be something connected with higher prominence, money. I don't know what it was attention. But, but she needs to get back to her original roots as a decoden and a family, you know, wife and kids. And I'm not saying I don't know the intricacies, but the things that she is doing. There's three things that she had that didn't work out for her. She wasn't sober and judicious when we had these crisis. So when the two people were killed in Minnesota, she just shot from the hip and said tear it. You know, it may have been but you should have just said we regret any death. But as the head of Homeland Security, we've got to protect the lives and safety of our officers. And this is a tragic death, but we're going to investigate it fully. But I have confidence that our officers are not going to be found culpable. But I'm absolutely willing to change my mind if I find evidence over. That's all you had to say. And then where's the wall, Jack? I thought the wall was going to be done by now. Remember we saw all that stuff that Joe Biden let rust and we had to go buy it and Trump bought it back, right? Yeah. It's not work. It's somewhat. But we want to get it done before the Democratics come back in power. That was her prime objective and we didn't get it done. Then there is that she like when she showed up at that high, you Know that high security Latin American prison in what Guatemala was it or El Salvador? El Salvador, not Guatemala. It was El Salvador. And she if you're going to go walk among or see the most dangerous people in the world, then I would try to play down my personal femininity and I would be more bureaucratic. And that was.

[Jack]

It seemed more like Hillary at that point.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, yes. Or you know, you. What I'm saying is Tulsi Gabbard is a very attractive woman, but when you see her, she looks natural, you know what I'm saying? It doesn't look like she's trying to be suggestive. And so that hurt her. And then she had these ads and, and they centered on her on horses and everything. And now she spent, she had budget. I don't think she spent at all. But $250 million, is that what, 240 million. There was accusations that some of the companies that were making the ads or in. In the response had the responsibility to market them. I don't know. Were known to her or there was some. And then we get into this. The reason that people liked her in the Dakota, she represented Dakota values. Maybe she still does. I hope she does with family, husband, nuclear family, farm ranching. But then with Corey Lengowski, she kind of morphed into an urban creature. And then there were these accusations that she was having an affair. And so when they asked her about, you know, the Democrats were going to do it, they were going to ask her about it because he's a special employee attached to her. And there's been these stories in the paper that they've been seen too often together alone or, you know, he lost his temper or she did when that blanket was left on the private plane or she's using a huge private plane for there was this image somebody should have said to her, look, I know you want high profile coverage, I know you want bombastic language, but that's the president, not you. You're his servant. So what you want to do is scale back the travel, wear plain clothes or just wear workman like clothes that reflect what you're doing. I wouldn't try to wear a lot of makeup. I wouldn't have any commercials in which you are in. And I would be very careful with the budget. And you've got to get rid of Corey Lenowski because there's these rumors that you, you were using a special. Not using, but you hired or the administration hired and attached to your staff a special employee that would never, you know, he was not a full time employee permanently. And you're a married person with grandkids. And that was your image that made Trump interested in you, that you were middle class, upper middle class, successful entrepreneur, but basically fly over America. That represents the values. And you're not projecting that image, you're projecting a Hollywood wannabe image and carrying on what could be construed as an affair. And she said, I know you wanna think that conservative. When she was asked about that in a very cruel way, she said, I know you wanna think that conservative women are stupid and slutty, but I'm neither. And the next sentence is and I'm neither. And I resent the fact that you insinuated that I had an affair, which is untrue. She couldn't say that. And that's why she. And I don't know why he would be back, because he fizzled out as Trump's2016 campaign advisor when he pushed that reporter and there was all this controversy around him. I know that in the wilderness years when Trump was out of office office, there were certain people that he had to disconnect from, like Steve Bannon, like Corey Leandowski, that came back as die hard supporters and kind of said, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I'm still with you, President. And he was, you know, naturally wanted to bring them back in the fold, but now he's in a different position, he's president. So I think, think that that was wise that what he did. I thought Rich Lowry, though, was really you. And I know Rich for so long, you know, you even longer than I did. And he's very mild mannered. But did you see that thing he wrote about her about.

[Jack]

I did not, no. What did he say?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Did he break her over the coals or. Yes, basically, she's a lousy employee that deserved everything she got.

[Jack]

Well, thanks.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

There you go.

[Jack]

I'll go read it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The other thing about her, just quickly is that there's one workmanlike guy who's been there forever. He's hard nosed sometimes he comes across as gruff, but he's absolutely reliable. And that's Tom Holman. I knew you were going to say that. Yeah, he represents, you know, kind of America, law enforcement, and he's very good at what he does. And for all of that hard bark on him, he knew that you don't take high profile ICE people and pick people off the street. And that was a rare occurrence. But he knew that if, even though, put it this way, when you go After a known criminal and you go to his apartment and outside there's a teenage kid playing, and you know he's illegal. You have an obligation to ask him his status. But he knew, secondly, that if you did, that is a controversial thing. That is dynamite. So what you do is you downplay Collateral Arrest. You don't brag on it, and you go after the criminals first. At the later stage, once you've got them, that's fine. What? You know, when she was doing these commercials and everything, and then the ICE people in Minnesota fell into the trap that the narrative switched. They actually arrested 4,000 people with criminal records. But we didn't hear that.

[Jack]

Yeah. You want to hear? Well, you know, we arrested 237 child sex traffickers as part of this. We don't need to see.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And it's still a winning issue. The polls all show that 70% of Americans want all criminal illegal aliens deported, and 55 to 60 want all illegals appointed. So why wouldn't she use that asset instead of trying to rival him and see how many hours he's on TV or somebody else is on tv? It's sad.

[Jack]

Well, she has plenty of time now to contemplate all the things you just said.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Victor Trump was very magnanimous. He made her the head of what American Shield, this kind of. Of quasi government security apparat that she will run. I don't know if Corey's going to go with her, but she should cut him loose.

[Jack]

Yeah. Amen. Well, let's talk about one other woman in the administration, and that's Brooke Rollins. And we'll do that when we come back from these final important messages. Okay, folks, we're back. Victor Davis Hansen in his own words on the Daily Signal recording on Saturday, March 7th of this episode is up on Tuesday the 10th. So, Victor, could I ask you a

[Victor Davis Hanson]

question, though, before we start?

[Jack]

Yes, my friend, I think it was

[Victor Davis Hanson]

a brilliant move on your part to introduce Brooke Rollins right after Kristi Noem.

[Jack]

I just was.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Because I didn't know if you were trying to message our audience. Because we haven't rehearsed. We never rehearsed this. Anybody. We just know. We just go read and then it's kind of spontaneous. But maybe your point was that Ms. Rollins is very attractive woman. She's a professional. And when you see her, she looks. She does not look like Kristi Noem. She looks like a business executive.

[Jack]

She looks like a secretary of a cabinet.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, she looks like a secretary. She's very, very attractive. She's immaculate groom. She's tastefully dressed. She's all. And she doesn't make. I mean, we know what she's doing and that's good and that's important. But she's not making these commercials about her. She doesn't appear on horses or on tractors and stuff. And so maybe you were trying to contrast the right way to do it.

[Jack]

I wasn't, but it just fell that way. So we've talked about her before with her focus and coming to the defense of farmers and rural Americans. And once again, this is this website unwon that I've seen this announced and I went to the USDA site. So it says, here's headline, USDA Announces Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework to End Agricultural Lawfare. I mean, there is an agricultural lawfare. So brutalize rural farmers and ranchers, et cetera. I'm not going to read all this, Victor, because we've gone somewhat long, but I am really pumped that Burke Rollins is taking this fight to these folks who are. Just because you're a rancher doesn't mean you get to be vilified like you're some, you know. Well, maybe they are. I assume you're wealthy if you're a rancher, so. But so what? So what?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'd be careful about that. I know a lot of people who are farmers and ranchers and they're wealthy on paper, right?

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But one thing they don't have is fluidity because, you know, we had 180 acres at one time and I would just say in my mind, okay, today they're working on pulling out the pump to $2,500. Oh, the insurance premium came due $7,000 today. Oh, we have 25 people picking Santa Rosa plums and Black Butte plums. And that was going to be 9,000. That was every day. And then I'd say, what is coming in? And then people would say, well, you have 180 acres. This is how much it is an acre. But what good does it do? You like Willy Lohman?

[Jack]

It's worth more dead than alive, Right? Exactly.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And that's what these, all these farmers are in that. And when you mentioned lawfare, I saw it firsthand. I knew people who, the state EPA would come out and say, oh, we have a federal Water Inland Waterways Act. We have a depression on your place and it rained and that is now an inland water. We've interpreted it that way and we're going to take nitrogen sample and then fine. You or I knew of a person very famous case that said, you know what, I can't make it at $440 raisins. I'm sorry. I own my own land. I own my own vines. I own my own grapes. I can do whatever the blank I want with them. And I made raisins with them, and they are mine, and I'm going to sell them to anybody I want and get your hands off my property. And they put him in, you know, 20 years to win that. And I must say that the Hoover Institution was very good on that. People like John Taylor really wrote extensively about the raisin Administrative Committee. But I saw all that. I saw it once. We were building a raisin dehydrator on our own, and sure enough, the building inspector came out and he said, you don't have a permit. I said, it's an ag exempt building. It was at that time. He said, I know it's ad exam, but you're putting burners on. And that makes at a commercial. I said, we're not selling to anybody. All we're doing is in time of rain, we're going to have this little dehydrator, and we're going to bring them in and dry them ourselves. And they're going to be sent to Sun Maid just according. Well, and then I said, you know, one mile from here, there's seven houses on one plot, and there's about a hundred violations of the people living there. There's animals all on the road. Their dogs get run over. It's just a night. Why don't you go. Oh, I'm not going to go over. Thing was, I've mentioned that before with solar panels. And so what they always do. The farmer is at the bottom of the pyramid. He can't say, I'm going to pass on the cost to what. No, he fights the. The farmer and the rancher fight the weather, they fight the market, they fight labor, they fight inflation. They fight. It hits them first. And when you go in that supermarket and you see beef or. Or, you know, it's just a different group of people. One time, at one point, Hillsdale College was seriously thinking of kind of partnering with the Harris Corporation and building a campus. I think it would have been a wonderful idea, but there were certain impediments. But put it this way. And I was kind of an advisor to Carol and John Harris, but I wasn't very persuasive on either side because it didn't happen. But my point is, at one point, I went in to the Harris board. These are corporate people, very big. But here's the point. Just because most of them knew about farming, you know, and agriculture and been very. They were just different. The way they dressed, the way they talk. They were just earthy people. They were wonderful people. And yet they were. I looked around the room and I thought, wow, that guy is really. He's big, big, big. He's big. But they didn't act like that because they had started, you know, know with that experience. And I find that in the Midwest when I go to Hillsdale every year, when I speak or I speak to donors or I have probably I'll see some guy and I'll say, you know, I have a thousand acre pig farm. I run 1500 pigs, hogs. Well, you. That's a lot of money that you're going to make. But the person is just. Looks just like anybody, you know what I mean?

[Jack]

I went to one of our friend Richard of events up in Fresno and there was that guy over there dressed like you are right now, flannel and normal. That guy's the tomato billionaire. That guy over there is the almond billionaire. That guy over there is the peach.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I was talking on a cruise, a National Review, I won't mention any names. And I was talking to a fellow and he looked pretty raggedy and his hands looked like somebody had just sandpapered them. When you shook hands with him, it was like shaking hands with a cactus. And he had his baseball cap on with his logo on. And somebody said, wow, isn't. Aren't most of these people kind of support National Review? I said, yeah, yeah. He said, that guy's a farm worker. And I said, no. And they said, well, how do you know? I said, I think he's worth about $300 million minimum, maybe half a billion. And they said, well, how did he start it? I said, he started it with nothing. He came from the Basque land with nothing. And he's brilliant. He and his brother are both brilliant people. They're kind, wonderful people. All the family was. But that's what makes it. That's what makes America really. That's what I get. That's what I get really angry about. Yeah, I get really angry about the. You need a bureaucratic state. State. I just wanted to finish by saying you need a bureaucratic state in some reduced fashion. You can't, you know, food and drug and all that. But you have to have some admiration for people who are entrepreneurial and they survive on their own skills. And I admire independent truckers, doctors with their own. But of all, farmers and ranchers are something else.

[Jack]

They really are.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Are. They're Very smart people and they work hard and they don't get any recognition.

[Jack]

Seven days, no days off. So my audio went out for a second, so I apologize if I was talking over you so well. We've gone very long. I got to read three very nice comments about you. Of the many, many hundreds that we know happened constantly on YouTube and other platforms. Suzanne Webster 760 writes, Victor shows me how much I know know how much I don't know historically. How he keeps all those facts in his brain and imparts his knowledge in ways that keep the listener interested is a marvel to me. And I love his backstory and his humility. Sending healing vibes to Victor. Then there's Coy G2P who writes, he is one person that provides the old saying. I think means proves the old saying, if you don't learn from history, you are bound to repeat history. His historic insights into the past and ability to reflect them in today's awareness is unbelievable. Love them. And then the last One is Luann Staley, 2880 I have the utmost respect and admiration for you, Victor. The past relatives you speak of must have been impressive souls. I hope there are young souls soaking up your wisdom today. May your sleep come and your surgery heal. Prayers.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you.

[Jack]

And I'd like to add just one other thing, Victor. I went to a I've. I just found out earlier this week that one of a neighbor passed away and I knew she was a fan of National Review and when I went to the wake her husband was there and he's like I know you. And they were ardent fans of the podcast and of you in particular. So Leanne Eddington, rest in peace. And to Max, her lovely husband, who's again big fan of yours.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I had a guy show up. I shouldn't say show up. He's very sweet guy, Gary. I won't give his last name, but he came yesterday and he's. I talked to him. He's just what we're talking about. Entrepreneurial guy. Built his own business from the ground up, very successful and he brought. He brings fruit by I have no idea that people. I guess when you're out here in the farm, you're isolated, you think like 10 people are listening. You know what I mean? Oh my gosh, I have no idea because I'm not. Part of my problem is that I'll be very quick and I'll end. But after June or July, whatever I had was starting to really affect me. So I didn't fly anywhere and I didn't get out like I usually do 50, 60 times a year or so.

[Jack]

Mobbed at airports, Right?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I just got more in a, you know, like a. I don't know, the Greeks had a word for it, Quietism.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That mean that you just detached yourself? Because I didn't have the energy and I just kind of of thought, are anybody listening to these podcasts? And then I didn't. You know, I do Fox from my barn, so I didn't know how many people watch Fox. I didn't look at the ratings. So then when I became ill, all of a sudden I was just. I really was shocked. I had no idea that so many people listen. And I really appreciate it and I'll try to keep going. I'm going to try to get well. I'll just leave you with that. I have some little heart problems, but I think I'm going to get over that. I had a great heart. I don't mean nice heart, but I mean physically strong heart until this operation. But I think I'll get back to baseline and then I'll deal with the muconus adenoma carcinoma G12R mutation and we'll get back to the 4 for broadcast. Yeah.

[Jack]

Well, you're doing terrific, Victor. And even here you have part time, quote, unquote, part time is more than most people do full time. So I just want to. One last thing. Thanks folks who subscribe to Civil Thoughts. What I do. So if you go to civilthoughts.com sign up, you'll get the free weekly email newsletter published by the center for Civil Society comes out every Friday with 14 recommended rehearsals. Victor, you've been terrific today. Thanks for all the wisdom you shared. Thank you folks for watching, thanks for listening and if I could speak English. We will be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. Bye bye.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you everybody for listening and watching. 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.