Victor Davis Hanson: Biden’s Autopen Scandal Is the ‘Biggest Sham Perpetrated in My Life Time’

Summary

Podcast Summary: Victor Davis Hanson — Biden’s Autopen Scandal Is the ‘Biggest Sham Perpetrated in My Lifetime’

Podcast: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Host: Victor Davis Hanson (VDH), with Jack Fowler
Date: December 2, 2025
Produced by: The Daily Signal

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Overview

In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson provides a wide-ranging, historically informed analysis of contemporary American politics and culture, focusing especially on what he calls the “autopen scandal” of the Biden administration—where key official acts and pardons were allegedly approved by mechanical proxy rather than by the president himself. Additional topics include the pitfalls of AI piracy and content theft, the decline of public manners in air travel, the perils of current immigration policy, and the consequences of Afghan resettlement in the U.S. Hanson brings a historian’s lens to bear, drawing connections between current events and broader trends in American society, citizenship, and governance.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. AI Piracy and Content Theft (02:54–09:18)

• VDH discusses the problem of intellectual property theft and the proliferation of fake AI-generated content using his likeness, voice, and name.
  • “There’s all sorts of things on the internet ... My body and my mouth is moving in a script that I didn’t write.” (03:29, VDH)
  • It is worse than plagiarism, as it does not just steal ideas but assigns false statements and views to living people for profit or influence.
  • He recounts an incident of a young podcaster who used unauthorized AI snippets to simulate Hanson’s presence and speech, leading to VDH refusing further participation.

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2. The Biden “Autopen Scandal”: Executive Authority and Democratic Legitimacy (09:18–15:42; main thread)

• Prompted by a Donald Trump Truth Social post, Hanson analyzes the use of the autopen by Biden to sign official documents, pardons, and commutations.
  • Trump’s statement: “Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the autopen ... is hereby terminated and has no further force or effect ... The auto pen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President.” (09:18, quoted by Jack Fowler)
  • Historical parallel: Only comparable precedent is Woodrow Wilson’s incapacitation during his presidency, but the Biden case is both more extensive and more deliberate.
  • VDH’s central charge: Biden was used as a “moderate veneer” by the Democratic Party to enact “the most radical agenda ... more radical than the New Deal.”
  • “This was the biggest sham perpetrated on the American people in my lifetime. It makes Watergate look like a joke. They had someone who completely was a zombie and didn’t know where he was or what he was saying. And they used him as a prop...” (14:14, VDH)
  • Questions the retroactive legality of executive orders and pardons signed this way, raising potential constitutional crises and complex legal disputes.

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3. Pardon Abuse and Lack of Transparency (15:42–17:33)

• Fowler highlights the case of Adrian Peeler, an inmate released by an autopen-signed commutation, questioning who and what interests are behind such decisions.
  • The duo speculate that similar abuses will continue unless investigated and publicized, likening these acts to past government overreaches and deceptions (e.g., “Russian collusion,” “Mar-A-Lago raid”).

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4. The “Permanent Distraction” Tactic in Politics (17:47–23:10)

• VDH details a pattern where attention is repeatedly redirected from policy failures to scandals or emergencies—(e.g., Epstein files, Russia “collusion,” ICE protests).
  • “It was a distraction ... The people in the Trump administration were not able to keep their eye on the prize. It’s the economy, stupid. It really is.” (21:59, VDH)
  • Argues that these distractions mask real issues like inflation, economic decline, and public safety.

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5. The Decline of Civility in Air Travel (25:38–34:41)

• Transitioning from policy to cultural malaise, VDH and Fowler discuss the decay of etiquette in airports and airplanes, responding to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s plea for public “dignity” while traveling.
  • Hanson’s anecdotes (26:25–33:00):
    • Unwell, inconsiderate seatmates (“I just took my temperature, it’s only 102. I think I can get home…” – 26:25, VDH)
    • Service animals, emotional support animals, and general disorder
    • Outrageous passenger behaviors and the lack of enforcement
    • Abuse and manipulation of airline disability boarding
    • Deterioration of airline policy and staff authority post-COVID
  • “I got to the point that I would say one out of two flights, I was in danger ... Something about COVID or afterwards, there were too many people. Then the connections, I was missing 40% of them.” (33:00, VDH)

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6. Immigration Policy: Mass Entry and Decline of Assimilation (36:47–45:57)

• Hanson expresses increasing skepticism about the viability of both illegal and mass legal immigration, referencing problematic assimilation and a fraying melting-pot model.
  • Discusses Somali and Afghan resettlement (noting crime and anti-American sentiment in enclaves like Minnesota)
  • Notes growing driver’s license fraud, unqualified truck drivers, and everyday hazards as symbols of failed integration.
  • “When you have the host that will not acculturate or integrate people, and you add the force multiplier that they’re illegal, they don’t know English, they don’t have skills, they’re impoverished … you have Jasmine Crockett saying … [letting in] 7,500 Africaners … that supposedly is racist.” (39:57, VDH)

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7. The Afghan Shooter Case, Vetting, and Asylum Priorities (41:45–63:21)

• Analysis of the D.C. shooting perpetrated by an Afghan immigrant given priority housing after “vetting” deemed inadequate.
  • The attacker was subsidized ahead of U.S. citizens, which VDH calls “DEI ideology in action.”
  • “He was reportedly saying ‘Allahu Akbar’… The media didn’t really report the whole story… The implication was that he was roughed up, but he took off his clothes. Why he took off his clothes, I don’t know… but there was no full reporting.” (41:45–44:30, VDH)
  • Quotes a CNN Justice report noting “struggle to try to make sure that the vetting was appropriate,” with fake backgrounds bought from brokers. (56:16–58:32)
  • “There’s no accountability. ... DEI is embedded in immigration ... It's an ideology and ideologies can't be questioned.” (58:32–62:00, VDH)

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8. Broader Consequences: Afghan Pullout and Policy Catastrophe (63:49–66:14)

• Reflecting on the broader disaster of the Biden administration’s Afghan withdrawal
  • “We built a billion-dollar embassy, left 50 billion in arms, and abandoned the secure Bagram airbase ... The withdrawal was done for a political photo-op by 9/11.” (63:49–66:14, VDH)

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9. Citizenship Devalued & Melting Pot in Crisis (68:22–73:57)

• Observations on the erosion of the privileges and obligations distinguishing American citizenship from non-citizen status.
  • Undocumented immigrants gaining prompt access to subsidized housing and even offices; citizens face years-long waiting lists.
  • “I went through a checklist ... The only unique privilege left for citizens is (maybe) voting and office holding — and even that is eroding.” (68:22–70:07, VDH)
  • Critique of new generations lacking historical and civic knowledge: “They don’t know anything ... A is for Anxiety [in schoolbooks], not Apple.” (73:57, VDH)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Biden’s suitability for office and the autopen scandal:
  “They had somebody who completely was a zombie ... and they used him as a prop to ... initiate and advance a radical agenda.” (14:14, VDH)
• On Travel Decay:
  “I used to love flying when it was so exciting. ... Last summer was the first summer I was home in 25 years. ... No more.” (34:41, VDH)
• On Assimilation:
  “Why would you come here and leave these countries and then have these ethnic food or ethnic assemblages, but you wouldn’t put an American flag here? Why would you do that?” (49:08, VDH)
• On the lack of distinction between citizens and non-citizens:
  “I don’t think there’s any advantage necessarily ... to be a citizen. And more importantly, we privilege people who are not citizens.” (68:22, VDH)
• On the current civic crisis:
  “The citizen ... is part of an educational system that’s therapeutic ... They don’t know anything.” (73:57, VDH)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:54 – VDH recounts AI content theft and the rise of deepfake reruns.
• 09:18 – Trump’s Truth Social statement on the autopen; VDH’s explosive reaction.
• 14:14 – “This was the biggest sham perpetrated on the American people in my lifetime.”
• 25:38 – On the collapse of etiquette and standards in air travel.
• 36:47 – On failed immigration policy and assimilation.
• 41:45 – DC Afghan shooter, media silence, and vetting failures.
• 58:32 – Governmental lack of accountability and DEI’s influence on immigration.
• 63:49 – Biden’s Afghan pullout as catastrophic historic event.
• 68:22 – Citizens lose ground to non-citizens in social support and privilege.
• 73:57 – Decline of basic historical and civic education in schools.

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Tone and Style

The conversation is direct, often passionate, and rich in historical references. Hanson’s tone mixes a sense of urgency, disbelief, and occasional wry humor. There is an undercurrent of nostalgia for lost standards and civic values, but the main mood is critical and analytical—especially toward the Biden administration’s legitimacy and policy agenda.

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For Further Listening

• Visit VDH’s site victorhanson.com for more columns and exclusive podcasts.
• Fowler’s free newsletter: civilthoughts.com for recommended reads.

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This episode offers a sweeping indictment of current political leadership, technological threats to authorship, the breakdown of public order and decorum, and the fading value of American citizenship—all viewed through the historian’s lens of Victor Davis Hanson.

Transcript

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[Jack Fowler]

Well hello ladies. Hello gentlemen. Welcome to Victor Davis Hanson in His Own Words. We are recording on Sunday, November 30th. I'm Jack Fowler, Lucky man. I get to ask Victor questions. Victor is Victor Davis Hansen, the Martin and Neely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior contributor at the Daily Signal, which is the happy home of Victor Davis Hansen. In his own words. Victor has a website, the Blade of Perseus. Its address is victorhansen.com I will tell you later in this episode why you should be subscribing. This episode will be up on Tuesday, December 2nd. Victor, as ever, a ton of things to get your opinion, take analysis on. And I think we should start off today with two things. Donald Trump and his edict on.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The.

[Jack Fowler]

Illegality of the Joe Biden auto pen and Sean Duffy, the Secretary of Transportation with some advice on how to travel or how not to travel, which I know is a topic dear to your heart. And we'll get to those topics and plenty more when we come back from these initial important messages.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

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[Jack Fowler]

We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own Words, our first post Thanksgiving episode. By the way, Victor, how was Thanksgiving?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Very good. I went to my daughter and her family up in Auburn. We had a. She has a nice place. It's kind of a Refuge. They have chickens, they're getting rabbits. Five acres on a hill. So it was very good. I was a little disturbed though I got bombarded over Thanksgiving holidays and as usual talk. The Victor Davis Hansen in his own Word show is not just beleaguered by this bizarro duplicate. The Victor Davis Hansen reruns. Victor Davis Hansen show reruns. I think there's 900 of them. But now this AI I'm getting so many emails. We don't use the F word, we don't use any profanity. But these. There's all sorts of things on the Internet and some of them have a hundred thousand downloads and they have my body and my mouth is moving in a script that I didn't write. It's nothing to do with me. It's a little subtle because it's at a speed faster than I usually speak with a slightly different accent. But my gosh, there's four or five sites Victor Davis and they're not authentic. So this is the only authentication. Victor Davis Hanson and his own Word show and I don't know what I talked to my agent who's wonderful and both of them and I have 26 books and 18 of them now have audio versions that are pirated.

[Jack Fowler]

AI really? Not really like surprise.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I turn on. I was just curious if you notice this when you, you get these emails that come to you that you didn't solicit in their ads and they have people like Laura Ingraham talking to you and it's not Laura Ingraham at all or Martha McCowan. That's not them at all. So I don't know what they're going to do about all this but it's intellectual theft and piracy, copyright, it seems to me infringement. And it's not anymore just the gimmicks of five years ago where somebody would send you something that looked like it was funny. It's now a whole black market industry to take people's content and then. And it has two pernicious results. One is it destroys your ability to perform. I mean to keep going financially because they are drawing off audience and they run ads on them. And the second is they impute things to you. You've never said in these tricky, touchy times you have to be very careful. So if anybody sees me on the Internet, be sure it's me is what I'm trying to say.

[Jack Fowler]

Well you, let's say 90% of the time you record from where you are recording right now, your old stable. But sometimes you're in a hotel, but the background is what it is. And I saw one. A guy, Joe, who's one of the administrators at the Victor Davis Hansen fan club, sent me a link, and he says, is this Victoria? And he kind of knew it wasn't, but it was like 90% there, except the background was. And your face. I mean, it's your face, but. And they actually had your microphone with the brand of the extension on it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I think they photoshopped the picture, and then they. They just add a script. And I don't know what the implications are, but there has to be some type of regulation and penalty for that stealing. It's kind of like plagiarism in a way. You're taking content from somebody else, but it's worse, actually, because you're taking their voice, their face, their brand, and then you're inserting into their mouth a script that they don't approve of and often they don't agree with. And you're doing this for financial gain. So I hope it stops.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Yeah. Thievery is. Has to be the essence of it. Although, Victor, there are some people out there just for the hell of it. And you remember not too long ago, there was a guy who you did an interview with, legitimate interview at Hoover.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes.

[Jack Fowler]

And then would take these and cut them up and chop them up and put them out there. Yeah, He's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

If he's listening, he knows who he is. He was a young graduate student. I won't give you any more information about him. And he wanted to have a podcast. And he kept bugging my assistant if I would go on it to help jumpstart his platform. And I did. And then, you know, if he asked for 45 minutes, we ended up doing an hour. If he asked for an hour, he ended up doing an hour and 15 minutes. It was just, you know, kind of like a garage laptop type, fly by night. And then I didn't say anything, but I noticed he was saying that he had interviewed me and he was using that interview to get other interviews. And then one thing led to another, and every six months he would call up. And then I've noticed that he had a whole production team, in the sense team, meaning equipment, movable cameras. He really went upscale. He got huge audiences. And then he took the interviews and chopped them up into one or two minute segments and then marketed them, which I kind of resented without my permission. But then what got me very angry was he used AI and had me saying things at my farm and stuff that I didn't. I Mean, it was not me. Maybe he took what was in my mouth, but he made it in different locales that were not genuine or authentic. So the result of all that was I just said, no more, I'm not going to do it. And the fact that he was a supposed intellectual or a graduate student in the humanities made it even more ironic. I thought so. And I'll never do it again with him. Never, ever. Period. And so I don't. It's just when you try, you know, you get into these situations where people come and say, would you help me and get me started? And then you see that they're manipulating you and you're kind of a, I don't know, a dud dummy. You don't like to be used like that.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, Victor, since we're talking about fake things, let's talk about the auto pen which was used by Joe Biden in thousands of ways to free people, criminals, hardcore criminals, murderers, dirtbags, etc. And we've heard a lot about this for the last year. And Donald Trump has put out a statement the other day and like to get your comments on. And here's what he wrote on Truth Social. Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the auto pen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated and no further force or effect. The auto pen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States. The radical left lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute desk in the Oval Office took the presidency away from him. I'm hereby cancelled, canceling all executive orders and anything else that was not directly signed by crooked Joe Biden because the people who operated the auto pen did so illegally. Joe Biden was not involved in the auto pen process and if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Your thoughts?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, that raises a lot of issues. Number one, I don't know how you post facto go back and undo things that he did. I mean, I don't know why he pardoned Hunter Biden, Mark Milley, I think Fauci are all those invalid and if so, who adjudicates that? What if they say, no, he's pardoned me, so they're all going to have to go through the courts. When Trump says things like Sleepy Joe Biden and all of this people say they kind of roll their eyes and there goes Trump. But actually he's responding to something that is quite egregious. It's, we've never had it in American history. We came close with Woodrow Wilson and Edith Wilson covering up his stroke for over a year, but we never really had a president that. At some point, I think in the campaign of 2020, there were two decisions made. One, that the Democratic Party was going to lose according to the polls if they nominated Elizabeth Warren, a Cory Booker, a Bernie Sanders, a Pete Buttigieg, etc. And two, given that Joe Biden was the only viable candidate, they were going to use him as a moderate veneer and sell him to the American people as a return to normalcy. That is, we would start remembering what Joe Biden said in the 70s and 80s, remember when he talked about a jungle and crime and his poor mother was endangered and he was against illegal immigration. So they passed that non existent Joe Biden and as a waxing effigy, then they used him and they perpetrated the most radical agenda, I think more radical than the New Deal. They destroyed the border, they destroyed jurisprudence as we know it. They weaponized all of the doj, the FBI, the CIA, they destroyed deterrence abroad. They sort of begged Iran to get back in the Iran deal, the Kabul pullout, was the worst military disaster in the last 50 years. It empowered Putin to go into Afghanistan. I could go on, but. So Trump has a point. And the question is, they knew he was incompetent non compos mentis. He was not in control of his faculties. And then they had another agenda, and that was to get particular green DEI ESG radical initiatives into the cabinetcies and the institutions that had no public support. And they put them on the desk and they used the auto pin. And to the degree Joe Biden knew about it, and I don't think he even did, there's no way that he can ever, under oath, identify any of those things in detail. Just no way it's going to happen. So then the question is, are they going to call in the people who did it and what will they say? Well, I talked to Biden. I have a. Well, do you have documents? No. And then people are saying, to what degree is Trump, as all presidents use the auto pin. And he'll have to explain that he has done it with on his direction, or he has an executive order, or he has a written chief of staff order, or somebody is in the room with him. I don't know, but he's got a good point, is what I'm trying to say. And it sounds crazy, but what was really crazy is what they did. This was the biggest sham perpetrated on the American people in my lifetime. It makes Watergate look like a joke. They had somebody who completely was a zombie and didn't know where he was or what he was saying. And they used him as a prop to, as I said, to initiate and advance a radical agenda that had it been explicit and open and people knew what they were going to do about the border or crime or critical race, critical legal theory or dei, they would have never voted for it. And that's. They knew that. And that's why they kicked out all the other nominees, like Domino's. They quit the primary of 2020. He hadn't won Nevada, he hadn't won New Hampshire, he hadn't won Iowa, and Jim Claiborne. And everybody said, I will. I will deliver the black vote in South Carolina and we will win. And then we'll get them all out. We'll promise them various things. We'll promise Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders a socialist agenda. We will promise Pete Buttigieg a cabinet post, et cetera. And that's where we are. And Trump, he's got a right to be furious. And that he doesn't speak about it in sober and judicious tones is a lot of people resent that. But compared to what actually happened, his description, as uncouth and crude as it can be, is absolutely spot on.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, Victor, I mentioned this before on previous podcasts, but these folks who've had their sentences commuted, et cetera, by Biden, by the auto pen, anyway, it would be wonderful if some, not necessarily conservative organization, but some organization that was truly interested in justice, would track each of these. Take Adrian Peeler, who was a truly evil man from Connecticut who killed hostages, excuse me, killed witnesses before a murder trial. He's been in jail for 20 something years, yet his sentence was commuted by Joe Biden, by the autopen. Why? Who was behind it? How did that get to that point? In whose interest did it serve to get to get this lowlife freed? And how many other situations are there like this that will they do it again?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They'll do it again. They'll do laptop disinformation, they'll do Russian collusion, they'll do the Mar A Lago raid. They'll do get them off the ballot, they'll do all of that again. That's why everybody seems to say, well, you can't have tit for tat because you'll take the republic down the drain. Vengeance, yes, that's true. But if it's measured and judicious and it's targeted for actual things that were committed then it's necessary. And what I'm getting at is there's a lot of culpability of James Comey besides just I think lying under oath that he didn't order or he did not excuse direct leaking to the media, contrary to what Andrew McCabe and others have said. So we'll see.

[Jack Fowler]

But well, anyway, you know, there could be no, I'm not tit, you know, response to the Democrats stat. There could be nothing. And then when Democrats got back in power, they're still going to tat regardless of. Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The other thing is all of these issues, the auto pin issue. Now I don't know what happened to the Epstein files. We were told by the Democrats that this was the issue of the entire Trump presidency. And every, even people on the right said, well, you know, he's hiding something. No, he wasn't. It was completely irrelevant. And 80 to 90% of the people in there were Democrats. They had the so called files to the extent they even existed as formal files. Everybody knew that. They knew Trump was not involved with Jeffrey Epstein, Epstein's sexual fantasies on his island. They knew that he disowned and separated himself from Epstein before he was a convicted pedophile sexual assaulter. And many of the Democrats welcomed Epstein, including Larry Summers, after he was a known child molester. So then Trump released it and he had good sense enough to say that it was going to distract from what I'm getting at is the economy. And then all of a sudden the Democrats kind of said, wow, it's released. Okay. Oh, we didn't know. We had it for four years. We didn't know 80 or 90% of them are Democrat. We don't want to get involved in this. I don't know what Bill Clinton was doing, I don't know what Bill Gates were doing. I don't want to know. It's over with, it's gone, done. Zero. And that's one of the reasons Marjorie Taylor Greene kind of imploded. She staked her entire career that Donald Trump was covering up for big donors and sexual escapades on the part of the right. And she was going to be a truth teller and a maverick. And he called her bluff and he released them and he tried to warn her that the Democrats had had that for four years. And there is a reason that Democrats didn't release it. She didn't listen. And now it served its purpose. That's what I'm trying to get at in this clumsy fashion. It served Its purpose the same way as the shutdown served its purpose. The same way as the laptop, the collusion, the same thing as the ice demonstrations, the same thing as the firebombing, the Teslas, the same thing as the National Guard or slave patrols, the same thing as everything they distract from the truth. Truth of the economy. The truth of the economy is that Joe Biden averaged 5.2% inflation every single year, 21% aggregate. He left in January with 3% inflation. Donald Trump, 10 months later averaged 3% inflation. Joe Biden got about a trillion dollars, if you're generous, in foreign investment in one year. If you take half of what Donald Trump claims, There'll be $10 trillion in foreign investment this year alone. And if you look at the GDP in the fourth quarter, what it's anticipated, even with a shutdown, it's going to be three or three and a half. So if you look at Doge, we were told it would only get $75 billion in revenue. It could get 3 or 400. There was no stock market class crash. There was no more. There was no recession, there was no trade war, none of that. And all of these things were long term investments. So when the big beautiful bill, such as it is, starts to kick in with massive deregulation, tax cuts, full speed ahead on Energy. We're pumping 14 million barrels. No nation in history has ever done that. And more natural gas in history. And he's going to increase it. So somewhere around March or April, this economy is really going to get even better. But that's not what the Democrats want to hear. That's not what they want the people to hear. So it's Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. It's Tesla, Elon Musk. It's ICE or Gestapo. These are ss. We'll cut a video telling soldiers to disobey orders. It's all a distraction. And somehow they convinced the American people that after having hyperinflation of 9.2 in 2022 and spiking prices, 21% on everything. But if you look at insurance and staple foods and energy, then you're getting up to 25 to 35%. California, 40 or 50% in some things. After doing all of that, they go out of office and turn around and say, affordability, affordability, affordability. Trump hasn't undone all the damage we did. We did 21% inflation in four years. He's been here 10 months and he's still got 3% inflation. But we never got 3% on average. That was just the last month or two. We were in office, we averaged 5.2%. And the people bought it. They did. And part of the reason they bought it is what we're talking about. It was a distraction. And the people in the Trump administration were not able to keep their eye on the prize. It's the economy, stupid. It really is. And they gotta drum that in every single day because they're gonna have a very good economy.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, Victor, to our viewers and listeners, if you've studied enough history, you start to see a pattern. Nations don't lose their way overnight. They drift through debt and division until one day you realize the foundations you thought were permanent were never permanent at all. Today, America is spending at levels once reserved for wartime. We've normalized deficits that would have stunned earlier generations. And policymakers now debate whether the only path forward is more intervention, more printing, more distortion. But here's the historical truth. Every society that pushed its currency beyond discipline eventually paid a price. The wise never waited for collapse. They prepared for the correction. And that's why so many thoughtful Americans, especially those nearing retirement or in retirement, are reallocating part of their wealth into something that has outlasted every paper experiment in human history, talking about physical gold not as speculation, but as insulation. Reputation matters. Which is why we are partnering with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability and an A plus rating with a better Business Bureau. For years, they've guided Americans through transparent education and long standing relationships built on trust. And right now, they're extending a special liberty offer for our listeners or viewers to help you get started with real gold. Whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in a bank, if you believe that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious. Then here. Now get a pencil and piece of paper, write this down. Call 8447-909191-84479, 09191 or visit protectwithvictor.com that's 844-790-9191. One more time here 844-790-9191 or visit protectwithvictor.com history rewards those who take the long view. And we are very thankful for the good people at Allegiance. Goal for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, before we take a break, I mean, you're a man who's traveled so much, not so much recently. You've not been in, you haven't been in an airport for a bit. You certainly weren't enough times in your life to make up.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I was doing three out of state Visits a month for, I don't know, 30 years.

[Jack Fowler]

And you always had the good fortune to have events happen on your flights. And not everything was an event, but you're as many people, they. You just go on a plane and you, you, you think you're in a, I don't know, some hobo, some sleepover, whatever. So.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Senator, that's unfair to Greyhound.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, it's true. Senator. Senator, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy came out with a statement right before the Thanksgiving travel and long overdue folks. Could you, could you please have a little dignity when you travel? Can you, you know, wear. Don't take your shoes off, don't wear pajamas, et cetera. Victor, your thoughts on this?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I was sitting, the last flight I flew was with. By myself, was with a woman next to me. And she had a hoodie on and sweatpants and she was wrapped in three blankets right next to me. And she was on the phone as we were taxiing to her daughter. I couldn't, no, I was not spying or trying to overhear her. She was so loud and she said, my temperature, I just took it. It's only 102. I think I can get home without. I don't know what it is, but I'm afraid I got Covid again. And that was the person right next to me. And she was enormous. She weighed about 300 pounds and she had about three blankets on. Sweating and no, I didn't have a mask. So when I went to the. It's not just that people wear sweatpants or yoga pants and the people who do shouldn't. I don't. I've never understood the idea of wearing yoga pants. That reveals defects in anatomy. I mean, I would, I have defects in anatomy. I would never wear a skin tight polo shirt. I have a gut, I suppose. But the point I'm making is it wasn't just casual. It was, you know, when you. There was no respect. And then we had this. We started with pets that were for the blind, which I support, of course. And then we had. For people depressed, you know, that the dogs were. What was the word for that? When you bring a dog?

[Jack Fowler]

Service, animal service, dogs.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then we just had dogs and cats and birds. And you get there with. If you're sitting there and a woman or guy next to you says, toto is a nice dog, he won't bother you, I'm just going to put him down at your feet. And he passes wind every five minutes while you're flying and he kind of laughs. Or you're sitting there and a kid in the back thinks he's on a roller coaster. So he starts kneeing your back again and again and again. Or the person ahead of you, even before you're at 10,000ft, puts his seat all the way back. And then if you try to go back, the person yells in your ear, don't do that. So it's partly 200 people, 300 people, 80 people in a little tuna can at, you know, 40,000ft. I understand that. But the airlines never made any effort to say their effort was, let's get as many people on this plane as possible, let's overbook it and get as many flights, and we're going to cut down the profit margin, and we're going to make this cheaper than bus travel. And they did, and they never say anything. And then you go. You sit there. And I got to the point that I would say one out of two flights, I was in danger because I was leaving from Fresno, and it was very hard most of the time to get a connection. And then you get on there, and then people have this miraculous recovery. They get on this wheelchair, and they don't even make a pretense that they're disabled. They're just standing up or this. And then they get on, and then you're trying to board. And then if a person says that they are disabled, the whole family comes on as service people, like five to escort ahead so that they can all get space. So then even if you have a business class and it says business class only, there's luggage that people put in that accompanied somebody disabled. And then you think, okay, so we have 17 wheelchairs. Maybe we'll still make the connection. And then you get there, and all of a sudden everybody's cured. It's sort of like, I don't know, magical waters or hot thermal baths or something, because when you want to get that connection, they jump up. Yeah, all the people that were disabled. And then there's always about every fifth flight there was the meltdown, and the meltdown was someone did not get on. I mean, somebody comes to the airport with a standby ticket, and they go to the desk and say, am I going to make it? And there's five names up there. Yes, you'll probably make it. And then 1, 2, 3, 4, get on, and then they're waiting and waiting and the doors close. Well, you said I was gonna make it. Well, we didn't know we had a late ticket at arrival or there was an air marshal or something like. They don't even say air marshal, but the Person then melts down and starts screaming, then turns to all the people there, or you're on the plane, and there's all. Every fifth flight, there is an incident. I was on a flight where a woman decided that. She said in the back that she had the nicest cleavage. That's a euphemism of anybody on the plane. And so she took off all of her sweatshirt and her bra and sat there. And the man next to him, her. Could not stop staring. She's very young and attractive. And then she got up and had to walk up and down. And everybody said, you're gonna. You're gonna cost us. We're gonna have to go back. And then finally, a male attendant came there with a blanket and put it over her and said, if you take the blanket off, we're all going to have to turn back. And then, you know, she put her clothes back on. And then as she walked out, she stuck her tongue at everybody and said, why are you doing this to me? So, I mean, it was. You put 200 people on a fly, there's a chance that, you know, 1% are crazy. Yeah. And then you add the Frito boat that's right next to you when they bring in the whole entree of foods. And then it's just. And then you have the guy who's in business class who's very. He's either a politician. I won't mention the name I've seen. I know a politician who did this, but a celebrity, a politician, a CEO, and he just thinks that his phone call is so important. Chuck Schumer. Yeah. Sir, could you please put away your. Your mobile phone? We're. We're taxing now, and we're not allowed to do. Yes, yes, of course. But this is just. I'll do it. Sir, sir, put the phone away. Yes, I know that. You've told me 5. You don't have to be rude about it. Sir, if you do not put the phone away, we're going to take it from you. You do that, and then it just. You know, the pilot gets on so well. I don't know. I just said, you know what? I'm 72 and I've had some lung problem. I'm not going to do it anymore. And then I got. A lot of people would call me. What? You're not supposed. You're not going to fly over here. You're not going to fly to. You know, it's not that far. Well, you know, if I want to fly to Maine or I want to fly to you know, Michigan or I want to fly to Mississippi. It's get up at 3 o', clock, go to the airport for the 5:30 flight, get the 45 connection at Denver or Salt Lake and then fly another, you know, five hours and hope that everything works perfectly. And it did for the first 20 years. Something about COVID or afterwards there were too many people. Then the connections, I was missing 40% of them. And then a six hour flight, my favorite was a 24 hour flight to Hillsdale. I missed the connection in Salt Lake and then I got another one and we got over and then they said there was a storm so we were going to divert to Grand Rapids because we had circled the Detroit airport too much. But don't worry, the tanker truck was on the tarmac, so it was a touchdown fill up, back over. And as he assured us this is a 30 minute flight detour. So we did there, there were seven planes ahead of us and the truck ran out of fuel. So we were there three hours. Then we got back. By the time another storm had come, we missed the window. We circled again and I, and then I had an. I got to Hills, I left at 3 in the morning. I got there at 3:30 in the morning.

[Jack Fowler]

Dang.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And wow, I got Covid the next day. So I just said, you know what? This life's too short. I, I, I, I used to love flying when it was so exciting. I was this farm boy and I thought, wow, they're going to pay me $300 to speak and Arkansas and I get to fly. And this is. So that was when I was like, I did that so often. I think I flew. This is last summer, was the first summer I was home in 25 years. I flew, I was gone in Europe 30, 30 days a year. Right. But no more. Well, I sound like an old.

[Jack Fowler]

Just be glad you're not the Indian victor. Because I saw a clip of air travel in India and the wheelchairs, there aren't like 70 of them.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I want to tell you something. An Indian flight came into, excuse me, an Indian, yes, an Indian flight came into SFO. My wife were there. There were 30 wheelchairs that had to accommodate them. And it was right at peak hour at customs, at sfo and there wasn't enough people there. And we turned around and all 30 without exceptions had got out of their wheelchairs and were circle yelling and screaming at each other. And the people who were running that and no, the people who were attending it were not white. They were from another minority. I think most of them were from the Philippines. They were the most polite, capable professionals. And they, you know, they said, either get in your wheelchairs or we'll take the wheelchairs away. Yeah, but it's, I don't know, you know, I don't want to get another topic, but I'm a big supporter of legal only immigration. But Mark Krikorian and I once had an argument. I really like him, he's a very good guy. And he made the argument that we should go down to 100 or 150,000, not a million. Right. I thought that was extreme.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

When I look at what's going on in Somalia, the terrorism and then the hundreds of thousands who came and what has happened in Minnesota and I hear what Ilya Amar has said about her adopted country, that it's trashy, that it's got a dictatorship worse than Somalia, then I look at the evidence and I think there's a compelling case. Scott Johnson at Powerline has been instrumental in showing so that she married her brother and she committed immigration fraud. And now we learn there's a multi billion dollar theft of food programs from the Somali community. And they hid behind dei and Tim Walsh was instrumental in giving them de facto exemption. Then every day in the national news, there's somebody who crossed the border, the southern border, and there was another one just today. Whereas drunk driving assault kills a US citizen and his family, it's almost daily fair. Yes. Daily fare. Then we have the truck drivers who came from India and were illegal and they were given licenses with no name on them or in the case of California, 40,000 licenses without property certification. They could even read English. And when you drive down a California freeway and you see a truck weave at 75 miles an hour and he's passing somebody going 70 and he wants to get in the middle lane and occasionally on a three lane freeway, they'll get in the far left lane and they don't know how to drive. I just think that we need a timeout. We have too many people. And so when Trump puts it in crude terms, no for the third world, everybody gets angry. But his point is, is if you're a melting pot society and you do not want to end up like Europe, then you have to have a Marshall Plan that when people come over, you have to instruct them in advance you're here for a purpose. You rejected the culture of your own country. You want to integrate, assimilate and acculturate into the United States. And when you come into Chicago or you come into Minneapolis, instead of saying gimme Gimme, gimme. You should say, who built this beautiful city? Where did it come from? Who are the immigrants that created this wonderful culture out of the prairie? If you come to Fresno, California, you should say, my gosh, these were neoclassical buildings on the mall. Who were these people? They're all in the graveyards. But I owe a great debt of gratitude. It's much nicer than Guatemala. We don't have anything like it in Mexico. I'm so happy to be here. But when you have the host that will not acculturate or integrate people, and you add the force multiplier that they're illegal, they don't know English, they don't have skills, they're impoverished, and they feel that the moment they cross the border that they're eligible for diversity, equity, inclusion bias because they have claims against a country that they never set foot in, but because they're so called non white. And then you have Jasmine Crockett saying that because Donald Trump wants to let in 7,500 Africaners who are basically targeted in South Africa, that supposedly multiracial paradise, and you've got 12 million. The majority, vast majority, came across the southern border and who are not white. She thinks that's racist. Jasmine. What's racist is the current immigration policy. It really is. And when you start to see people who give preference over US Citizens, that's what I cannot understand. The Afghan.

[Jack Fowler]

Illegal. Let's take a break, Victor, because we got to get on that Afghan shooting and the preference he got, and. And we'll do that when we come back from these important messages. We're back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. And my apologies to people who. Their hobby is to say, I interrupt Victor the whole show. So I have no.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I go on too long. I need to be interrupted.

[Jack Fowler]

No, no, your soliloquies are wonderful. Let's talk about Victor, the D.C. shooter, and maybe a little more about Trump's edict on immigration, but let's focus on the D.C. shooter, the terrorists, the Afghani who was in Washington State, drove all the way to D.C. murdered at least one and the other National Guardsmen. Life is, as we're talking, is hanging in the balance. Your thoughts on this, Victor?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, the media didn't really report the whole story. We never really. He was reportedly of saying Allah Akbar, but as in the case of Major Hassan in 2013, who killed 13 soldiers, wounded 30, and yelled Allah Akbar. And they did not report it fully. And General, I think it was General Casey, excuse me if I'm wrong, I'm doing this by memory. Chief of staff said, well, the great tragedy of this shooting would be if it endangers our diversity program. So we didn't get the full story. And then he was almost naked. And so people said, you know, the implication was that he was roughed up. And his clothes. No, he took off his clothes. And why he took off his clothes, I don't know, but it seems he thought he was on his way to paradise. But that's just conjecture on my part. But there was no evidence. Did he or did he not say Allah Akbar? Did he or not? De Carlos Brown, Was it a doctored video we all saw where he said killed the white blank. Did or not Mr. Reid in Chicago say burn, girl, burn or whatever he said. So the media doesn't really tell us because. And it's like the policy of BART and Oakland, they will not release violent crimes on mass transit because they feel to do so would show that black people, black males, are inordinately involved in crime. And we would make false stereotypes and therefore might not want to ride bart. And this is a system in California that wants you to spend another 150 billion on top of the 30 billion to have high speed rail. And most Californians said, if you prayed to the archangel and he came down and built high speed rail for nothing. Beautiful system. And then he said, just run it, it would lose billions because people will not trust their safety to a state like California. And the same thing with all of this. So we bring this guy over and they say he was vetted. I like this very. This term. No, no, Trump was wrong. He was vetted. What does vetted mean? In the last 24 hours, when people are scrambling to get here, you say, this guy worked for us, but you don't really ask him. You don't sit him down in a room like he's on Ellis island and ask him questions. Probably not. And then he drives all the way out across the country to blow the brains. He not only shot her in the head with his revolver, then he grabbed it and shot, I mean, shot her. And then he executed her, basically. And why do we do this? Why do we do this? I don't understand. Why do we give preference? Say you didn't vet him and say that bringing all these people en masse was a mistake. Why would you compound that by giving him, was it $2,000 a month, a subsidy for an apartment for his family when US Citizens have to wait months for that? What's the rationale behind all of this? And you know, when they Say Trump's polls are going down. Do you really, really think the American people want to go back to this, where you have every night mayorkas on t, the border's secure and you see 10,000 people swarming in. And you know what it means? It means drunk driving, assaults, et cetera, et cetera. So I've kind of also changed on immigration, legal immigration. I think we need to. I'm for legal immigration. If you have a host that will acculturate and integrate and assimilate people and will teach people civics and the mechanics of what it means to be a citizen. But if they don't know, God bless America, if they've never heard of Blue Gehrig, if they've never had any experience with the American system and they think they're coming over here to create Dearborn, Michigan in emulation of somewhere, it doesn't make any sense to keep doing it because you're creating ethnic enclaves that are hostile to the United States.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, Stephen Miller came out and said something yesterday. I think it was Stephen Miller on Breitbart. We are importing cultures as opposed to importing individuals.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And you see the problem is the people who are for this. Forget the government and the Democratic Party and the left. We know why they're doing it. They're doing it because they have a message that the majority of Americans born in the United States do not want. So they want to bring in constituencies, they want to change balloting laws for early voting and mail in balloting, and then call anybody racist that objects to it. And then they get people who are on public support to vote for them. And the public support, it's 63 billion in remittances to Mexico. It's 65 billion to Central America. It's another 100 billion to India. So altogether, it's about in all the countries in the world, it's nearly a trillion dollars of money sent out by people. Not all, but for the most part, are on public assistance. So that's the logic behind it. And we're supposed to say, please, please stop this. You're a racist. You're a nativist. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead and do it. I don't want to be a racist. It doesn't work anymore. And if you're not. And the central problem, as I said, is that the people are coming in, can't accept the paradox that they're in. If you come from Iraq, if you come from Gaza, if you come. And I'm just taking places where there is a violent What Donald Trump said, hellhole or Haiti. And you come here, then you should understand why you came here. You came here to get security, prosperity, freedom, the rule of law that was not found in your own homeland. You voted. We didn't send a telegram to somebody in the west bank that said, please come over, we need your genius here. No, we didn't. You came and often you came illegally. And when you got here, don't go into our universities and start pushing Jews around and saying pro Hamas. We don't want that here. I don't mean Victor doesn't want that. I mean the majority of Americans don't want that. So we need to have a brutal bargain return. You came here, you left your country. It's our job to do something. I was driving down yesterday, I went in and this was a checkerboard of small 40 to 80 acre farms. And it was multiracial and multi ethnic. I think I've mentioned that. I had eight or nine neighbors. They were originally immigrants from India, they were immigrants from Mexico, Armenia, Japan, et cetera. There wasn't just white. I think our farm and one other was so called white. But they were all fervent pro American.

[Jack Fowler]

You were e pluribusunum.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It was a natural melting pot and there was zero crime. Nobody had a key to their door. Everybody farmed 40, 80 acres. Everybody worked. The kids never got in trouble. They're wonderful people. They produce some of the best citizens in the world. And today in my that same circumference, I would say there's probably 50 active gang members, no doubt. And I would say that there's only two to three people who own their home that are living in it. And I would say that I could walk into any of those homes, homes, quote unquote, because they're compounds with Winnebagos and add ons and find 150 building violations, code violations, animal cruelty, et cetera. Okay, so I'm driving down through here, I turn and then I go. And the first canteen has a flag, that's Mexico. And then I go to another religious. Very good place, not wonderful people there. But it has a Sikh flag. And I'm thinking, why not? Sometimes there's an American flag, but this day there wasn't. So I'm thinking, why would you come here and leave these countries and then have these ethnic food or ethnic assemblages, but you wouldn't put an American flag here. Why would you do that? What's the message you're sending to Americans? I don't understand. I don't want to be in your country. I'm not proud of your country. I'm more proud of the country I left and no longer want to live there. So I think people are getting very tired of it. And I got a lot of criticism from Mexifornia, not from just the left because it was a melting pot book, but people from the Paleo, right, and said, victor, you want to let people from all over the Third World come and. And I didn't distinguish that. I still believe in what I wrote in Mexifornia, but when I wrote that 25 years ago, there was a melting pot, still a vestigial one. If you don't have a melting pot and you don't have confidence in your culture and civilization and history and you're not ready to acculturate people in that tradition, then you're going to be like Europe. It's not going to work. And the attitude right now, Jack, is that people, they don't fight back, they just move. Everybody. I notice every single person that used to live here has moved. They're gone. Some of them went to the Bay Area, but most of them went out of state or they're living on the coast of California. They left and they basically, to the degree I even knew they were gone, they said, I can't live there anymore. I'm not going to live there anymore. I'm sorry.

[Jack Fowler]

Remember the old Tarryton? I think it was Tarrytown cigarette. I'd rather fight than switch. But we're in a time. I'd rather switch than fight.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, I mean, everybody says to me, they say, why are you still there? Don't you get tired? I think I mentioned with Sammy two days ago, I see a truck right across there. A guy waves to me. I notice he's just sitting on the side of the road in front of Orchard. And then I walk my two miles. I come back 20 minutes later and there's a huge mattress where he was. Oh gosh, sitting right half, you know, one corner almost in Mountain View. And then I try to cross the road because I go on both sides and there's a truck with two trailers of granite or filter going about 75 miles an hour, but with an ethnic. I don't know whether it's legal, but truck driver. And there's three, three or four every 10 minutes and they're going 75. I just look at the pavements cracking and this has been going on for high speed rail construction for about two months. And I think, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, the speed limit is 55 miles an hour on a two lane country road. You've got 20 tons of dirt or gravel on that truck. You can't just drive 70 miles an hour. It's not safe. You're going to endanger people. You can't pass somebody with a semi truck on a two lane road going 70 miles an hour. And does anybody teach you that? That's my.

[Jack Fowler]

You and I were talking on the phone about a week or so ago and I heard in the background, because you've mentioned this once before and I could hear the trucks, the rumble and vroom and every.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I did a radio every two or three minutes. Yeah, I did a radio interview from my cell phone about a week ago and they said we're going to put you on in five minutes. And I had the phone and then he came on after two minutes and he said, are you guys having an earthquake or what's going on there? And I said no, there's two or three semi trucks and they're going down to Highway 41 and then they're going to fill in for the new high speed rail. It's spend 15 to 30 billion without one foot of track. And they think that, I guess they get paid by the load and they're going about 70 miles an hour with 20 tons, 20 tons on this little road. And it's about, you know, from where I'm Speaking, it's about 25 yards from here. Yeah, and that's just. I just drove for Thanksgiving. It was a nightmare just watching the way they drive the truck drivers in Gavin Newsom's California. And so I just think, you know, it has nothing to do with ethnicity or race. I think everybody understands that it's culture. But nobody cares what color you are or how you look or where you came from. All they care about is one thing. Will you adopt and embrace the culture of the last 250 years that was created before you ever got here and was superior in your view, not mine? I'm not even going to weigh in on that. I think it was. But it's your view that it was superior to your own culture or you wouldn't be here. And if you don't think it's superior, then you can go back. But you made the choice and we're here to teach you why that choice was wise. Yes, you came from India, yes, you came from Guatemala. Yes, you came from Mexico and here. Yes, you came from Somalia and you want help. Okay, here it is. Here's how you salute the flag. Here's how you learn English. Here's how you obey the laws. Here's how you pay your taxes on time. Here's why you don't go 55 miles an hour over in a country road with 20 tons. It's not hard to think. Or you don't go and join M13 or Serenos or Nartenos or Trent. None of that. You don't do that in this country. But it's.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, let's look at that a little more. Victor through I wanted to discuss the Oath of Allegiance with you and then also a little more about this murdering Afghan terrorist and how he was vetted.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And how you're so judgmental.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, I know. I'm gonna have to go to confession. Well, I'll do that later. But we'll come back from these important messages and get to those final topics. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. I want to remind our listeners and viewers at Victor's website, The Blade of Perseusviktorhansen.com is a place you should be checking out frequently. Tons of free stuff, links to Victor's articles for American greatness in his syndicated columns and his various appearances in his books. But then there are also the Ultra articles and video that he does exclusively for the Blade of Perseus. And to read them, to watch the videos, you need to subscribe. It's $65 for the full year, which is discounted from 650amonth. It's like two free months. So go to the blade of Perseus victorhansen.com and do sign up. And maybe that's the Christmas present you should be giving yourself or maybe you know somebody who's a VDH fan and make a great present. Victor, let's stick to the shooter. And then if we have time, get to my little idea on the Oath of Allegiance. But two things. One is this was on CNN two days ago. Senior justice correspondent Evan Perez stated that while Afghans from the unit that the quote, unquote, suspected shooter, they were vetted, quote, there's been a struggle to try to make sure that the vetting was appropriate. I'll tell you this, there were examples of people who essentially bought backgrounds from the brokers. And he goes on to say that this is something obviously it's been known since Joe Biden unleashed this madness on the world and on America. And it has perplexed and been of great concern to the FBI of these bogus backgrounds and kind of stains all. And maybe they should all be stained and all Thrown out your thoughts, Victor, on the if any more thoughts on the. On the troubling vetting process?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

There's no accountability. First of all, when you have this administrative state, what are you going to do for someone? Somebody comes into you and says, you know what? That guy, I think he had a bought cv and I let him go, okay, but we might not promote you next year. There's no consequences for the state. And you can see it here. When I drive in California, when I see a private construction zone like they're billing an apartment building, they're pretty careful about signs, warnings. When I see the state doing it, the employees, they seem to be much more lax. Cause who's going to sue them? There's no consequences. So the larger the government you have, the more people who are not going to have consequences for any mistakes they make. And then, let's be honest, that's one thing we try to do in this show. And we don't try to offend people or incite people, but try to tell the truth. DEI is embedded in immigration. What I'm getting at is we bombed Serbia and we bombed parts of Bosnia. If we had taken Serbian Orthodox civilians that disagreed with Milosevic and we brought them en masse, we would have vetted them. If we bring these 75 or 8500 South Africans, we will vet them. If every this border to the north was being swarmed by right wing white trucking Canadians that were mad at Trudeau, 110,000 a day, we would have vetted them. But when you arbitrarily cut the country in two, and that's what Obama did, he introduced it. Biden and whoever was the brain or the ignoramus Behind Biden said 70% of you are oppressors and victimizers and 30% are oppressed and victimized. And you said, wait a minute, Indian Americans have the highest income in the United States. Japanese Americans have the highest income. Arab Americans make more. I don't care. Class doesn't matter. It's all race, race, race, race, race, race, race, color, color, color. When you do that and you divorce it from class and then you divorce it from prior demonstrable oppression. So somebody comes from Oaxaca and you say, well, you're here illegally, fine. Your kids are eligible for affirmative action because of historic discrimination. Against whom? The Mexican government. That is terrible toward people who are indigenous in Oaxaca. We're not the Mexican government. But when you do that, then you're going to have problems. And it's true of every ideological exemption there is. If it's not empirical. Same thing with the Green New Deal. If you say we need Green New Deal, you can't criticize it. Or you're a retrograde Neanderthal and you burn up owls in a solar plant that doesn't work or your batteries blow up in Monterey, California, or your high speed rails a boondock. How dare you do that. Or wind turbines out or making whales sick, it doesn't matter. It's an ideology and ideologies can't be questioned. So DEI is an ideology and you can't question it. But it's completely based on a false premise that all prejudice is directed in one direction and it has nothing to do with anything other than race, not class, nothing. And so that's what the, that is the catalyst behind the immigration. If Trump really wanted to have a legal, he would just say we are going to go back to the old quota system and we are going to look at people in a diverse fashion and we are going to allow people from Europe and from Japan and very sophisticated countries, Korea, more. And we will just say the more people who are educated and can come with capital and have knowledge of English, they're going to be fast tracked because we've done the other thing for 60 years and we're going to try something different. We're not going to say you can't come from the third world, but if you want to come and you have no means of support and you don't know English and you can't be vetted, you're going to have to wait for a while, a long while, and you're only going to come legally and we'll see what happens. But we discriminate against the people who can speak English and have education. Da, da, da, da, da. We don't want them, especially Europe. We could get, I think we could get 5% of Europe to come immediately.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They're so sick of what they're doing over there.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Well, while you were talking, Victor, I was thinking about part of the original question here and I don't want you to answer this because we're going to move on to another thing, but we'll talk about another show is maybe the broad consequences. This murder in D.C. is a consequence of Joe Biden's Afghan bugout and there's so many huge consequences to it and we should look at that more broadly.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'll just add, I don't want to delay, but there was a, it was this. We had spent a billion dollars building a new embassy in a war torn country. We left 50 billion plus in material and weapons. It's now on the terrorist world global market. But we put 300 million into the Bagram airfare space. The old Soviet. It was wonderful. I don't know, it was 70 or 80 miles outside. It was completely defensible. All they had to do, all Biden had to do was say we're going to gradually, in stages, predicated on the Taliban's attitude, slowly withdraw and we're going to do it from Bagram Air Force Base. And we have complete control of the skies here. We have complete security nfu and we're going to take applications based on danger from retaliation from the Taliban or your work for the U.S. whatever. And we're going to do it formally over the next four months. It would have been fine. And then they could have said, you know what, we're going to keep 5,000 people here and we'll pay rent to the Taliban. But we want this Air Force base because it's strategically located with China, Russia, Iran. And that's all we're going to do. We're not going to just put all this money in the country for 20 years and then hand this over to the Chinese or somebody. But why did he do that? The rumor was he wanted to get out by 911 so he could say that on 2021, on September 11, Joe Biden and Joe Biden alone got everybody out of Afghanistan 20 years to the day after. So other people fought the war on terror. Joe Biden declared victory and ended it. And Mark Milley will go down in the infamy of generals when he was asked, as well as other leading officers in July, what's your assessment of the resiliency of the Taliban enemy and more importantly, what's your assessment of the ability of Americans to withhold withstand that? Well, I can just tell you that the Afghan army is just superb and the American. There's no problem. It's secure. That was a complete fabrication. Yeah, that was horrible, the whole thing. I felt those 13 Marines that died.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, I feel Biden's motivation is much more psychological and that he is just somebody that loves chaos. Like some marvel supervillain with the city collapsing behind you, he just, he is thrilled to that his whole career in politics and that's what we.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

How he looked at his watch when the bodies were flown home.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, it's just what a. Well, anyway. Not anyway, anyway, but one other thing. Maybe we'll get to this. Allegiance. Oath of allegiance in the next show. We'll continue talking about immigration. But you brought. I Want to mention something here, Victor? Get your thoughts on the preference that we show people. So this National Guard murderer, I don't know if I'm saying his name right. Ramanula Lakanwal. What happened was he, it says, and I'm reading here from Derek Evans, posted this on X. His wife, his five kids were moved straight to the Walton Place Apartments, subsidized housing in the Bellingham Housing Authority. And that's in Washington state, I believe. Bellingham, by the way, is a pretty sweet town.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I've been there, I've spoken there. It's really beautiful.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. The wait list for American families is six months to three years. American elderly, disabled, single moms and veterans are pushed aside while Afghan migrants are given priority. How did this piece of blank repay America? By taking lives of our troops, Victor. I was on the housing authority for, for about five years here in Milford, Connecticut. We have public and state and federal, et cetera. There is like no way you could get anyone onto a list at all, no matter their crises. It was a lottery. You had to sign up. And then when there was sufficient empty apartments, the lottery was there was just no way for anyone to get to the head of a line or you would be arrested if you, if you tried to get your grandma on the list at all, never mind into an apartment and this guy gets free immediately.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I discussed this in the Dying Citizen. I went through a checklist of all the unique properties of citizenship versus non citizenship. And the only one I could think that, and it's been four years since it was published, but the only one that I could think of that was uniquely confined to the citizens was holding office and voting. But now that people who are illegal can run for school board elections, I think in Cambridge, Mass. In Berkeley, and I think there's people that are holding office that are illegal we don't know about. But more importantly in voting so people can vote and hold office. So I don't think there's any advantage necessarily in the view of the immigrant to be a citizen. And more importantly, we privilege people who are not citizens. And again, it has something to do with dei. It really does. It does. If this was Serbia and we were involved in bombing Serbs and we brought in a bunch of right wing Serbs, people would go ballistic. They say, oh my gosh, this is a criminal state. Milosevic is Serbians and you're letting them stay here because we bombed their home. This was terrible. It wouldn't happen. And I don't think it's necessarily race in the simplistic sense it's just that on this DEI ideology, it's anybody who feels that they are oppressed by virtue of their ethnicity or race and they appeal to this mostly elite liberal ideology that is dominant and pervades our institutions. So, you know, Donald Trump is saying no more and we'll see.

[Jack Fowler]

But yeah, it's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I think the majority agree with him by far.

[Jack Fowler]

Is it a limited. No more. I'm looking at something where it's about haltzall asylum decisions. Well, asylum decisions may be the vast majority of our. Of the illegal incoming and he pauses Afghan visas. So you might have to do it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

From your own country with Biden. You just crossed the border illegally one day and said, I'm a refugee. I came here because I was in danger.

[Jack Fowler]

And that was, that's how guys from the Congo came up to.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I just believe that when you look back historically at the four years and what went on with 10 to 12 million illegal entries, it's going to be considered one of the worst decisions in the history of the country, what Biden did or whoever did it. And then when you see the result.

[Jack Fowler]

Of.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

People who come here, whether they're born here as second generation, but they're not fully acculturated or they're taught by their immigrant parents, in the case of AOC or Mandani or Taliban or Ilyan Omar, and you hear what they say about the country and how they have to change it because it's so terrible and it's so racist. And then you look at their lifestyles compared to Puerto Rico or the west bank or Somalia or Uganda, it's just aggravating. You know, you come here, you're now making millions of dollars. In the case of Ilyan Omar, and you're very affluent. You're wearing designer cloth like AOC or Talib, you're very affluent, and yet you just blast this country and it just.

[Jack Fowler]

You'Re a victim and it gives you the right to rage, rage against the man. So.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, did they ever ask Jack, who were the people who died on Okinawa? Who were the people who died in Iwo Jima, who fought at Khe Sanh? Who were the people who were blown up? Not that they were. I'm not suggesting they were white. I'm suggesting they were citizens for the vast majority. I went, you know, we had. When I was in high school, there was a wonderful Mexican American person who died in Vietnam, and the school still has that award for him. And I knew another person who Charles Venezuela, who was a good friend of mine who died in Vietnam. He was older than I was. But the point I'm making is all these people created this country. You just don't set foot in this country and then don't acknowledge the infrastructure and the traditions and safety and the prosperity.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, not to detract from maliciousness of the left, but if you met a 20 year old kid today and asked them if they knew there was even a war in Vietnam, say, or war Korea.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh, I mean that's. But that's, that's part and parcel. You're absolutely right. The citizen himself herself is part of an educational system that's therapeutic. And when they K12 is not. We're going to learn who Lou Gehrig is. We're going to learn what Henry Ford did. We're going to learn what Dred Scott was. No, it's. Well, you are that this is trans and this is gay and this is this and this. Race, class, gender, da da da. Radical environmentalism. All deductive indoctrination. And they don't get facts and inductive thinking. And that's why they're so ignorant. They don't know anything.

[Jack Fowler]

I have a family member that teaches little ones, little little ones. And even at the third and fourth grade level where you think the basic things you start off with A is for A is for Apple. B, you know what A is for Victor? It's not for Apple anymore. A is for anxiety. And this is what they're teaching little kids. That's I think Social sel. I forget what the SEL stands for. Social Emotional Learning. Yeah. So hey anyway, Victor, we've come to the end here. We're going to hold off on some of these other topics I mentioned. We'll get your thoughts on them on the next show. I want to remind our viewers to listen to or check out Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Let your friends know about this. Also accept no imitations.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes. No talking. AI victories. Strangle him.

[Jack Fowler]

And Victor.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Victor has the show than 900. Strangle him. The old Bizarro Victor. The real old one and the fake new one.

[Jack Fowler]

Do check out the Blade of Perseus if you have. Not yet. Victorhansen.com and as for me, Jack Fowler, I write Civil Thoughts free weekly email newsletter for the center for Civil Society. It comes out every Friday. It has 14 recommended readings, totally free. I'm not selling your name. You're going to like it. I know you're going to like it. Go to civilthoughts.com, sign up please and thank you. Victor. You've been terrific. Thanks folks for listening. Thanks for watching. We'll be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Bye bye.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you everybody for listening. 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 check out my own [e-mail] and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.