
Victor and Jack Fowler react to the Henry Nowak killing in England, focusing on bodycam footage showing police handcuffing the dying victim after accepting the killer’s racism claim, and Hanson frames it as “two-tier” DEI policing contrasted with the George Floyd case and aftermath.T
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parents in Hollywood said my son is trans or something or my daughter is trans. We don't look at it rationally or empirically. We don't say those drugs under any circumstances are quite dangerous, that you're taking these hormonal drugs, these steroids, all they're very dangerous drugs, especially at your age. We don't really know the particulars, except the Sikh person was carrying a quote unquote ceremonial sword which is allowed apparently under DEI auspices that he has religious exemption, but it was a pretty big blade and he stabbed this 19 year old white male repeatedly. They're just as culpable because they depend on new constituents. And why do they depend on new constituents? Because their agenda doesn't appeal to most people who have seen their other flip side of that other JACK.
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Welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. I'm Jack Fowler, the host, bumbling my way already. Victor we are talking on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. This particular episode will be up on Thursday, June 4. It's the late afternoon here in Milford, Connecticut, and Victor mid afternoon there in the beautiful Central Valley of California. Victor's the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. And he's a senior contributor to the Daily Signal, which is the happy home of this podcast and also Victor's other video thing, which is Victor Davis Hansen in a few words, four times a week. He does that for the Daily Signal. Check out his website, the Blade of Perseus. It's got a ton of free stuff, but you can also subscribe for 650amonth or $65 a year. And do click on that image of Victor's forthcoming book, Counter Revolution, an order a copy. It's out in September. VICTOR that's just so much to talk about today.
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Iran.
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It just seems like Groundhog Day with Iran dashed hopes of a truce or a settlement or a surrender. We have the Henry Nowak situation, murder and just uproar in England over what has happened there. California elections are happening today, but maybe we'll talk about Maine and Platner and we'll get to Jill Biden, too. Maybe some other things. We'll do all that when we come back from these initial important messages.
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Hey, folks, we're back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, let's start off with Iran. We under the impression yet again this is I don't want to say the umpteenth time, but it's certainly more than two, three, four times that we thought we were on the cusp of some treaty, some settlement, and then Iran pulled the rug out from underneath, saying Israel is attacking Lebanon, and that disqualifies any negotiated settlement with the United States. What are your thoughts on that?
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Victor? I have to apologize, everybody. I'm on the farm, and it's one of those days where there's a lot of equipment in motion. So bear with me. It's going to end pretty soon. Well, we say that we've been at war since February 28th, but we really haven't, Jack. We've only had 38 days. I'm not, you know, I'm not happy that we had any kinetic action, but the negotiations have gone on from April 8th until today. So that was all of May and all of most of April. So we're getting into, you know, 50 days of negotiation and 38 days of war. And we all know what's going on. Everybody knows what's going on. They are delaying, delaying, delay. And the only mystery is when the president says he might resign because the Republican revolutionary excuse me, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is running things or the military. We don't know if that's bad cop, good cop. In other words, they just the president said oh, we're making good progress. And then they hit Kuwait or they hit the UAE or they do something, or Hezbollah, their surrogate hits Israel. And then I'm very uncomfortable as our listeners are of Pakistan, an Islamic radical country that shielded and hid bin Laden. Remember, we had to go kill bin Laden on their soil. They knew exactly where he was and they gave him amnesty. So I'm very skeptical of them as a neutral host for the negotiations. So what am I getting at? Just quit beating around the bush victor and just get to it. They cannot be trusted. They have no history of honesty or fair dealing. We know what they're doing. They're counting the clock. Now they're right at five months. June, July, August, September, October, November. So there we are, November 3rd, I think it is. So we're right at five months and we've been talking about this at six months. So he has, Trump has seven months now. He doesn't have a lot of time. And that was the purpose of what they did. So I think Trump just needs to take a piece of paper and say no missile arsenal, no ability to make nukes, surrender of anything under Pike Mountain or whatever it is, no subsidies to your three Arab terrorist cabals and the Houthis, the Hamas and Hezbollah, and the straits will be open and you have five days to implement those. At the end of five days, we can't guarantee what you will be like. And then I think he needs to take out Pike Mountain with the same type of bunker busters. He needs to go in and destroy the dock, work everything on Carg island that cannot, not the fuel storage, but the ability to unload oil onto tankers. He needs to make a sanitary corridor across from the straits. And then he needs to look at what Bill Clinton did in Serbia, which worked and which Barack Obama did in Libya, and that is hit dual use targets. If a bridge is being used by military equipment, take it out. If there's a highway that goes up to Pikemut, take it out. And then we'll see what. And then the aim would be. And let the Israelis go after the command and control and just say to them, we're not going to negotiate with you. We're going to continue this until either one of two things happens. We're convinced you have no military capabilities, strategic or conventional, and that'll probably take about a week or two, 10 days, or you decide that you, we're not going to talk to you, but you can open the straits as we're bombing you and you can have an envoy that says here's where all of the missiles are. We quit. That's what I would do. You know, if he doesn't do that, Jack, we risk going backwards. So what would the people in Venezuela think? They're supposed to be right wing, excuse me, left wing communist maduristas. And if they think that we show weakness, then maybe they're going to say, well, they can't stop us either. And Cuba and China and everybody. So it's not a domino theory, but he's got to protect our sense of deterrence. And they have defined survival as victory. The regime has. And the left is. I've never seen this. In the Vietnam War. They were on the side of the Vietnamese, but they weren't. I don't know how to put it. They weren't actively. They were more quiet about it. There was an element. The anti war movement was about no more war. There were people like Jane Fonda that went over there, but that wasn't the majority. And the Democratic Party was trying. There was a peace party, the McGovernites and Eugene McCarthy, but they weren't pro Viet Cong. These people are pro Iranian. They want them to win or they're anti American. Yes, they're anti American. They want the enemy to win. That's clear.
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I think maybe that is.
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I do think there's a growing backlash. That's another topic. But there's a recent poll out In Michigan that 6 to 1 Michigan people do not want any more immigration en masse from the Middle East. They feel that the people deliberately form their own enclaves and communities. They do not assimilate, integrate, acculturate. And as Mr. El said, they run candidates like that who basically said he doesn't believe Israel should exist. And he had to be very careful about what he said about the death of the Supreme Leader Khamenei, because his, his constituents would get angry at him. So he's basically on the side of America's enemies. So I think this war has torn off another scab. And it's said to all of us, something is wrong with immigration, legal and illegal, but even legal, we are letting in too many people from too many antithetical cultures. And they're coming over here with no intention to assimilate or culturate. And we're not a tribal nation. We don't believe in tribal chauvinism. And they take DEI and they fuel it and they fuel their victims and they leverage their victimhood to get certain concessions. We'll talk about, as I did a video for Daily Signal, but we can talk about Howard Nowak in Britain, but I think the Western world is just saying we're going to go back to the pre1965 hard act and we're going to let in fewer people and they're going to be diverse and they're going to be skilled and they're going to speak English and they're going to want to be Americans. And we're not going to let in a bunch of people who want to drive trucks as illegals without any knowledge of English. We're not going to let anybody, a bunch of people come over here, form their own community. An antithesis to America. We do not like people like Ilhan Omar, who used fraud to come into the country. And it's just getting to a boiling point where all of the luminaries, it seems like most of the luminaries in the Democratic Party, Ilian, Omar, El Said Mondami, the fraudsters in Minnesota, this character New Jersey, who's running it just, it's. It's just too much. It's just too much antithesis to the American traditions and protocols. And they're anti American. When I saw the Hezbollah flags on those Columbia, Khalid Muhammad and all that stuff, it just, it's just not working is what I'm trying to say.
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Yeah, I don't think George McGovern or Ted Kennedy, as much as we don't like their policies, I don't think they were necessarily anti American. But the Democrat party, George McGovern was
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a decorated B24 pilot. Yeah. Very courageous. And then he opened a bed and breakfast and said, you know, I was on the wrong side of deregulation. You can't do business in America if you follow my socialist protocols.
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You know, that bed and breakfast is less than two miles from my house. And it's not a bed and breakfast anymore. Actually, he wrote Bill Buckley, who was his friend. I didn't know, as you were just pointing out. What is this about all these regulations? How can you run a business in this kind of environment? Well, I have some really interesting information, Victor, I sent you. We'll talk about that later. But I think it sinks in with what you're saying about people fed up. And when there's some analysis of America's job market and who is taking jobs, then the proportion of foreign workers in America taking jobs, it's shocking. But before we go there, let's go there in a little bit. You raised Henry Nowak and was murdered by kind of a reprobate even within the Sikh community in England. They, the people there thought this guy was a troublemaker, but nevertheless, this troublemaker who's been convicted of murder. But I think our folks, our listeners and viewers know the background. He stabbed Noak to death. While Noak's dying, he's bleeding out. The cops come and believe the murderer saying this guy said something racial about me. So what they do, they handcuffed the dying man and didn't believe him when he said he was stabbed. The police video, body cam footage is now out. Victor, it's so appalling. And Nigel Farage, leader of the reform movement there, says this is a moment for rage and also that white lives matter too. And he complained of what he said is a two tier justice system that goes on in England. So, Victor, what are your fuller thoughts on that?
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That's the first video I couldn't finish. It was just sick. To remind everybody what happened. We had a 19 year old who had a confrontation with a 23 year old immigrant Sikh from India. And we don't really know the particulars except the Sikh person was carrying a quote unquote ceremonial sword which is allowed apparently under DEI auspices that he has religious exemption. But it was a pretty big blade. And he stabbed this 19 year old white male repeatedly. And then his brother called, I guess it was near his home. His brother called the police and said that the perpetrator was a victim of racism. The police came to the scene. The perpetrator said he had a little mark, I couldn't even see it. And that this racist on the ground had attacked him and he'd only defend himself. That was all they needed. So then the DEI police, and that's what I'm going to use because that's the thematic narrative. They went to the anti DII person who was dying with a deep wound to the chest. His lungs were filling up with blood. I can relate to that because I had the same experience with three pulmonary arteries that were cut or broke apart. And I had two to three liters immediately in my lung cavity. And that's not a good feeling when they. When you can't breathe and you'll die with that blood in your cavity, they have to suck it all out. So he was there living and the police saw that and he was laying down and then they kind of pulled on him to prop him up and he said, I'm dying, I can't breathe. And they just completely ignored him and kept the cuffs off. And he literally bled to death in front of them. And they were just clueless and they were more worried about the perpetrator. And then he went in and they went home and they hid the murder weapon. His mother did. So then they found out the particulars of the assault. They came back and the brother I don't think has been arrested, even though he was the one who called in with the fake narrative that it was a matter of white racism, which really killed the kid. That was the one that prepped the police. And in their defense, they knew that if they had arrested the Sikh perpetrator, they probably would have lost their jobs. And then the family hit it. And then the Sikh leader in the community said, oh, this is terrible. People are blaming us. We're victims of hate now. And my answer to him is, don't identify an individual as a collective unless you want to be a collective. So there was a member of your Sikh community who killed a person, murdered him. He is a murderer. He was convicted. And then there was another member of that Sikh community, that member of that family who lied to a police officer. That's a felony. And then they hid. They were an accessory. Act for the fact. That's a felony. All you have to do as a self proclaimed Sikh leader is say the following. This does not represent the Sikh community. We are a group of individuals. And anytime that we find one of the members of our community is acted antithetical to our values, we condemn it most heartedly. All he had to say. But instead he turned around and said, well, the poor Sikh community is now getting death. If you're going to be a collective, then people are going to say, well, then this is what you do. If you want to be individuals, then act like individuals. The same thing here in the United States. No one has been more supportive on this broadcast than I have and in person of the Sikh community. Sometimes I kid my Sikh friends at one of the largest temples that's two miles from my house.
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You've talked about them many times.
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Yes, they're all good friends. They're wonderful people. They're wonderful citizens. I don't even think I should use the term. They're wonderful people. They're wonderful individuals that I know. One of my, the most admirable is Simon Siotti. He's a good friend of mine. I like him enormously. But my point is this. I tease them. I said, if you're going to have this huge Sikh temple with these flags of the Sikh nation, why don't you at least put an American flag on your temple? Sometimes I've seen it, sometimes I haven't. But when the Sikh overwhelmingly These accidents were perpetrated by illegal aliens. And here in California I got a noise. A second, just a second. Overwhelmingly, the Sikh drivers did not know English and they did not take the regular test and they were given exemptions. And there was an attempt by the federal authorities to say those licenses that were fraudulently issued and led to some deaths of innocents would not be valid in other states. And the Sikh community then said we want a letter and support. And this is. That was the same idea. Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you say these members of the Sikh community who entered the United States illegally and resided illegally and got driver's license under fraudulent circumstances and then acted recklessly and then killed some people by their reckless. We condemn these people. They're not representative of our community. They didn't do that. And I think that's. That's another sign that it's going to hurt the community and terribly hurt the community. Is that too loud for everybody?
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No, no, we can hear. Victor, it's good to know that you are on a working farm.
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Yes, I'm on a working farm and there's a big machine and it's very important that they finish the other thing very quickly. Jack, this is the anti George Floyd scenario. So here we have parallel tracks. Here is a 19 year old without a record who was minding his own business. Here is George Floyd, a career felon who broke into a home invasion and put a knife at a pregnant woman's belly. A convict who in the process of encountering the police was A committing a felony by passing counterfeit currency, B committing a felony by resisting arrest and C committing a misdemeanor by being under the influence of fentanyl. And then the police intervened in both cases. In the case of George Floyd, they used an approved police maneuver to subdue his violence and due to his Covid. Ongoing Covid due to his fentanyl intoxication and due. A jury found to Officer Chauvin's using his knee. He passed out and he said he couldn't breathe. At that point they called the ambulance when they thought that he really. And the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and he perished. And Officer Chauvin was given what a murder charge, convicted and he's been attacked in prison. I think now that I've understood. And then the country's reaction TO that was four months of looting, arson, violence, 35 people killed, 1500 officers injured, $2 billion in arson and damaged courthouse precinct, church burned, 14,000 people arrested. And that day gave us Almost ruined the universities because after that they dropped the SAT in penance for admissions. And now of course UC left wing faculty are saying, please bring back the sat. The students are too poor to do the work. We don't know what we're going to do. Stanford said the same thing. We can't water down the curriculum anymore because the graduates cannot get the type of jobs that Stanford brand would ensure them. The employers caught on to us. It brought everything. It changed the military with dei, it changed the popular culture with critical race theory. It started defund the police, all from that incident in Britain. There will be no mass arson, riots, Nothing. Nothing. He will be trapped. The murderer was convicted. I hope, I hope the members of the family that either hid the weapon or, or gave fraudulent information to the police will be charged and held accountable. And I hope, I hope the Sikh community will say that these people do not represent our values and they're not really members and standing of our community and we want to integrate and assimilate into British culture.
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Well, Victor, after George Floyd died, there were riots in Britain and the destruction of monuments in Britain. And guess who took a knee three days after the death of Floyd? It was Keir Starmer, now the Prime Minister. Not at that point. So the parallels are, the contra parallels are striking. I wonder if they'll be singing Obra Tanya at the, you know, the rugby matches there. Like we have the black national anthem, quote, unquote, spawned by the George Floyd death at football games in America.
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So anyway, it's part of the narrative that it's very funny because the left has used this word, indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples, they say, are morally superior. These are people who are colonized by people like the Mandami family, the settler colonialists who go to Uganda. I'm being facetious, but that would be fit the Mandami family according to leftist rhetoric. But my point is Britain has indigenous people too. They've been there since Julius Caesar invaded the island. And you can read about them. You can read about red haired women, you can read about Scotch Irish people, you can read about Celts, Britons, Anglos. You can read about all of them. They're all documented by, in Caesar's memoirs. They're in a lot of Roman literature. Romans were the settler colonialists. So my point is Britain has been invaded and people are colonizing. I'm just being a leftist now. And so is it time to allow indigenous people to be allowed to carry on their normal customs and traditions and not subject to foreign customs and ideas? That's what the Palestinians have told us, even though they're not indigenous people, we don't know of any Arab Muslims in the Middle east before the fall of the Byzantine control in the 7th and 8th centuries. Prior to that, what is now Israel or Judea was inhabited by Greek speaking Byzantines and before that Roman, Latin speaking Westerners, and before that Hellenistic kingdoms, and before that a Persian empire and before that Lydians and others. So Egyptians, etc. So the Palestinians came very, very late to the Holy Land and of course before all of them the Jews. The third, almost. Well, the fourth millennium, four millennia they've been there. So I just get really upset when we have the. There's something about Americans that they're very magnanimous people, but they do not like ingratitude. They do not like people to come over here and then stay here. And they left countries that were illiberal, dangerous, failed states. And then they arrive here and almost instantaneously they make no effort to know what the civil war was. Or if you ask Mondami who General Sherman was, or could he name some of the writers of the Federalist Papers, or ask Ilhan Omar. They don't want to know the history of our culture. And then when they are here, their whole narratives are critical, critical, critical, critical. You Americans had a racist past. There was a guy from. Was it MSNBC or cnn? Vishy, remember he was the person who said it's a mostly peaceful demonstration during the George Floyd. And he was on a rant the other day about the 250th birthday. Must talk about how sinful and terrible America is and slavery. I don't. I mean, it's not the American practice to go to India and say, I don't really approve of you people. You have a caste system. You had suttee. You made the brides go on the funeral pyre of their own husbands. When I went to Greece, the first thing I did at 20 years old, I read about six books on modern Greece. I tried to get maps and memorize them. I tried to know what the holidays were. I tried to say to myself, I will never throw a piece of paper out the window, even though it was common custom. I'm a guest at this country. I was very careful never to speak loudly during siesta. And I was a guest and I was very lucky. They were very magnanimous hosts. But that idea doesn't seem to exist here. We have so many people who come here and they know nothing about America and they start lecturing us on how sinful and stupid we are and how morally superior they are. And yet we never say, okay, tell me exactly how great Somalia is. Tell me how good Saeed Bari was, who your colonel father worked for. Tell me that. And you know, nobody says that to the parents of Mr. Digwa. Did anybody say to Mr. Digwa, tell me exactly how great it is in India today to be a Sikh, compared it to the United States and. Or how great it is to be would you like to be in India or Great Britain? And what would happen to you in India if you stabbed somebody with your ceremonial sword outside your own tribal affiliation? Let's say you went in and you stabbed a Hindu member, Hindu religion, and you stabbed him and then you lied and said that he attacked you and he was a racist. What would happen to you in India?
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Yeah. Or if I drove a truck over there and killed.
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I think I know what would happen to you. Yeah.
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So, Victor, I'm follow up on that. But first to our viewers and our listeners, if you've studied enough history, you start to see a pattern. Nations don't lose their way overnight. They drift through debt and division until one day you realize the foundations you thought were permanent were never permanent at all. Today, America is spending at levels once reserved for wartime. We've normalized deficits that would have stunned earlier generations. And policymakers now debate whether the only 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 or reallocating part of their wealth into something that has outlasted every paper experiment in human history. Physical gold, not as speculation but as insulation. Now our reputation matters at Victor Davis Hansen 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 long standing relationships built on trust. And right now, they're extending a special liberty offer to our listeners and viewers to help you get started with real gold, whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in the bank. If you believe as we do that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious. Call 844-7991-9184-4790-9191 or visit protectwithvictor.com that's 844-790-9191844 7909191 or visit ProtectWithVictor.com History rewards those who take the long view. And we thank the good people from Allegiance Gold for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor. To close off, we're going to talk about Platner and Maine next. I think it's worth noting, I could be wrong here, that if Americans hate Americans and then these ungrateful immigrants, legal or illegal, also hate America, I think it's all part of the need to be a victim. You can't be a victim and not hate America because it is one of the great achievements of human. And that's not an achievement, it's a lottery ticket to be born here and to live here, you should be thanking God every day on your knees. But you can't do that if you're a victim because you have to be oppressed. So I guess it just makes sense to hate, to hate America as part of being a victim.
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I see it every day, Jack. I. I saw it while I taught. I see it at Los Angeles when Karen. Every time Karen Bass gives a soapbox lecture about sanctuary cities, there's an ICE protest and there's some person there waving a Mexican flag and there's somebody next to him burning an American flag and it's in protest about illegal aliens. And you say to yourself, is this planet Venus or Mars or where do these people come from? They want to burn the flag of the country they insist they have a right to stay in and they wave the Mexican flag on the country, that they're free to go back, but under no circumstances they want to. What kind of twisted mentality is that? And I've asked former students who did that and they said, well, I was just frustrated or something. That's not an excuse. And I think part of the problem is the left has given this message that if you come here and 90% of our immigrants would qualify after 1965 as so called non white, the left then welcomes you with a whole parade of goodies. You know, it's okay you set foot in the United States, you're from India, you're from Vietnam, you're from China, you're from Mexico, you're from Colombia. We don't care how wealthy you are, you are a victim. Now here's all the federal and local and state entitlements that we give you. And we're going to ensure that because you're a victim. If you want to become a welfare worker, a caseworker, work in the entitlement hospice autism, you name it. You're not going to be investigated because you're a victim and you have certain rights because you're a victim. And they're just as culpable because they depend on new constituents. And why do they depend on new constituents? Because their agenda doesn't appeal to most people who have seen their other flip side of that other Jack and One Eyed Jack. That's what they are. Right. So that's you can't I, I have to be careful about faulting immigrants that fault the United States because they learned it from Americans. And certain Americans feel morally superior when they can trash their own country. But of course, you can't really trash trash them. They're very sensitive about themselves. It's like this Rahman city council woman who gives all of these crazy self righteous speeches about homeless. I don't see why anybody 500ft from a school should object. And then when they stage a homeless pseudo encampment near the. Oh, I'm afraid I just, it was almost my children almost saw that those homeless people, that was dramatic and that was almost like a divine sign about what these people are about.
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Flying the illegals up to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket, wherever it was a couple of years ago. Yeah, don't put them in our proximity. Well, Victor, we're going to take a quick break and then we come back. We'll talk about Mark Plattner and I mentioned earlier some of these really shocking employment figures, national and foreign. We'll do that when we come back from these messages. If you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen, you might enjoy the Daily Signals flagship show, the Tony Kennett cast, the same common sense perspectives you love. Weekdays at 7pm Eastern. And unlike some of the other evening shows, we work up until showtime to bring you the latest breaking news, analysis and good old American sarcastic. Thom Tillis I'm pretty sure might have been useful at one time as a doorstop. Find the Tony Kennett cast on YouTube, X Radio TV or wherever you get your podcasts. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. We're talking on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. This episode is up on Thursday, June 4. Again, do check out the Blade of Perseus. VictorHansen.com is the web address. Do subscribe 650amonth or $65 discounted for the year. And when you subscribe, you'll be able to read the two exclusive Ultra articles Victor writes every week for the Blade of Perseus and watch the one video he does there. Plus links galore. There's lots of free stuff. I think it makes a great present. So think about it as a gift for your father who's a VDH fan, or give it as a gift to yourself. Now, Victor, about Maine, and as we're talking, who knows what's going to happen between now and Thursday, but Mark Platner seems to be in trouble. Democrats are starting to hem and haw. Not hem and haw, but just hem about him. He has sexted on this Kik app. I never heard of it, but by various reports it had a reputation as being a locus for reprobates. His wife is on the payroll of his campaign, Governor Janet Mills, who withdrew from the campaign. It was the original candidate who was going to take on and defeat Susan Collins by various commentators. She is now talking today Tuesday about possibly re entering that race in case things get too bad for Platner. So Victor, sexts are bad, but his Nazi tattoos are acceptable. I find that deplorable. Your thoughts?
B
Victoria well, if you're Elon Musk and you give a Roman salute as did Elizabeth Warren, you're a Nazi if you wear a Nazi tattoo. And by the way, this isn't just a Nazi tattoo. It wasn't a Schwarzika. It was a Totenkopf head. And it wasn't just a Totenkopf head. It was a particular typology of a Totenkopf, a death's head. And it was worn by people that were either in an SS division, Gestapo division, I should say SS division, or they were working the death camp. So literally the last thing millions of Jews saw were these guards with this same tattoo. He's given so many narratives that he was drunk that he didn't know what it meant. That he did know what it meant, but he was just young and stupid. But he did know what it meant. But it was the Marines fault because they brainwashed him him and gave him a toxic masculine dose or something. Every he pushed every button. I mean, sex pervert. He says he masturbated in excuse my language, he masturbated in porta potties. Pervert. He sexed with women in various manifestations on this app that was used by predators. Crook. He his wife should not be working and paid by his campaign. If he is really disabled and he has traumatic stress syndrome, then obviously he can't be a senator. So I hope that he's not double dipping. Unethical. Yes, that he's unethical. Hypocrite. He talks about the billionaire class and everything, but his father was a Very successful lawyer, helped him out in his business endeavors. He went to Hotchkiss before he was one of the most exclusive schools in the country. Expensive before he was kicked out. So mean spirited. He called a very brave person that was exposed to fire and wounded, basically a coward and an idiot. There's nothing more that he can do. There's nothing more outrageous that he can do to turn off a voter. So if those main voters vote for him, that's an endorsement of that stuff because it's not like he has a record. They can't say, well, he has a big mouth and he's kind of erratic. But you know what? I liked his universal medical plan that he enacted. He hasn't done anything. He's never been in office. So all we know about him is what he says about himself. The other thing is he's not running against this right wing monster. He's running against Susan Collins. Whatever money thinks of Susan Collins. She's one of the nicest characters of a nice woman. You know what I mean? Nice person. She's polite, she's not mean spirited. She votes Republican and she on critical issues. It would have been nice to her to vote and she's voted against the majority in her party, but she does so. So she can be elected as a Republican in a hostile state to Republican. So he's not running against some far right person. He's running against a centrist. And yet when you listen to him talk and the way he castigates her, you'd think that she was Attila the Hun. And so all these people pop out of the, you know, I don't know where Mondami popped out of. I don't know where the woman in Texas who barely lost, she lost the primary runoff, but she had won the general primary when she said that Jews should be Zionist, Jews should be put in camps. I don't know where you get El Said, who's worried about ruffling the feathers of his Arab constituencies when they hear this Komenie or arch enemy has been killed. I don't know where the New Jersey plastic surgeon or whatever he is, where he came from, the friend of the blind sheik that our mutual friend Andy McCarthy prosecuted. I don't know where they pop up from, but they do.
A
You have the Attorney General, the actual attorney general elected of Virginia who talked
B
about murdering children, murdering his people and at. And I think I know how they pop up. I don't know where or why they do, but I know the mechanism. They put their antenna up in the general atmosphere. And they pick up signals. They pick up signals from people in the Democratic Party. They pick up the fact that you can't be nominated in the Democratic Party if you're for Israel. They look at the campus protests. They look at what people said after Oct. 7. They see how people say they'd like to cut Trump's head off, beat him up or shoot him or set him on fire. They see that discourse and they say, you know what? It's about time that some radical pro Palestinian, pro Hamas, pro Hezbollah, pro Khomeini runs for office. Yeah.
A
Well, Victor. Yeah. I think it's a good time for me to read an ad. How about that? So we have one more. So to our listeners and viewers, as we approach our 250th, is it possible for us to turn the Titanic of education, to restore civic leadership and enjoy summer vacation with our family all at the same time? Mount Titano Media says yes. This is the book for our two 50th and for all ages. It's called Finding Our Words that Made America, and I happen to have a copy. If you're seeing this on YouTube, you can actually see me holding it up. It's a collection of the greatest speeches delivered in American history. Many almost entirely forgotten words that defined it can still drive the American mission, and we could take them with us anywhere we go. This summer with the new Audible edition, these words that move the world are read by leaders in America today, including Michael Knowles, Andrew Clavin, Spencer Clavin, U.S. army generals and leaders in classical education. Every speech includes a beautifully written introductory essay written by acclaimed journalist Tracey Lee Simmons, which sets the stage for understanding the speeches in ways we wouldn't otherwise. Mount Tutano Media founder Alison Ellis, who reads these great words aloud with students of all ages even from birth, has a motto, if they can hear you, they're listening. Mount Media publishes single works and compilations of the greatest works of Western civilization for education at all levels and for independent lovers of learning and culture. Finding Our Words, Words that Made America. Here I am, holding up that book again. The book for our 250th and for always is available now in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, Audible, and in Spanish translation on Amazon.com and on the Mount Tutano Media website. That's Mount Titano T I T A N O media.com visit www.mounttanomedia.com read, listen and be inspired by these great words all summer, yourself and with the children of all ages and see where they take you. We thank the Good people from Mount Titano Media for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. And Victor, I know you know and I know you know I know Tracy Simmons, who's a super guy. I used to work with him at National Review long ago. He taught at Hillsdale. And you had one of his episodes of a podcast he does. You kindly put it up on the blade of Perseus last year. He's a super guy.
B
I did.
A
Anyway, thank you for them. So, Victor, before we get into that thing I promised on the jobs, I just wanted to point out, given all the uproar still in New Jersey, that ICE detention center, which is such a locus for performative art by the antifa left, there's some interesting data on ICE deportations. So Clinton, Bill Clinton deported 2 million with no riots. George Bush. George W. Bush, 2 million, no riots. Obama, 5 million, no riots. Trump the first term, 2 million no riots. Biden, 4 million with no riots. But now Trump 900,000 deportations with riots. Protests, Democrat outrage. It's all manufactured to stop Donald Trump. Any thoughts on that before we move on?
B
Yeah, those are all accurate. And then there's other statistics about the Delaney Detention center in Newark that I think I mentioned in one of my short videos, or maybe it was with Sammy, that actually Donald Trump has 905 people in that facility. But Barack Obama in 2000, I think it was 12, had more. He had 950. And if you look at the aggregate number over his eight years, there was a lot more people in there. So the protests about that facility have nothing to do with the facility. Tom Holman announced today that he went in and had his cafeteria lunch. He said it was fine. There was no real hunger strike. That was all a lie. There was no mass protest. There was no. There was a person who had a cold blue, that he had some type of seizure or something and he took him to the hospital. He may have died, but he didn't die at the hands of anybody. So all of that and it looks like about 90% of the people who have been arrested are out of state. So that was another staged antifa protest funded by left wing foundations. To do what? Nobody protested, as you pointed out with Clinton or Obama or Biden, nobody was protest. To get a protest, they had to lie that the Border Patrol was whipping Haitians when they weren't. So it's all. I don't know what we call it. It's all performance art and it's designed to drive down Donald Trump's ratings. All I can say is that when Trump reacts forcefully. I don't mean rhetorically, but forcefully. Then people rallied to him. So there was arrested 60 people I think yesterday that were attacking ICE officers. If there are federal prosecutors who will do their job and indict them and then they can get juries that are sober and judicious, they should sentence them to five or six years and see how many people show up to the next protest and the protest after that. And we know they believe in putting people in jail who protest and allegedly hit an officer because that was their great moment in history when Kamala Harris said that January 6th was worse than 911 and in Pearl Harbor. So these people are not brave people. They're very affluent, often coddled university kids and retirees that are quite comfortable. And if they break the law and they hit police with rocks or they attack them or they spit on them or they go up to their face and say I'm going to kill you, then they should be prosecuted. And if you prosecute enough of them, they won't do it anymore. Anymore because they're the type of people who worry about a felony on their records.
A
Well, Victor, let's take on some of this unsettling employment information I came across. I've shared with you. This is from On X an account called Aoffai and the headline here is foreigners have taken 90% of post Covid US jobs. I'm reading this from the publication called the National Pulse. So what happened? An analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that since the pre Covid peak around 90% of net new jobs in the US have been filled by foreign born workers. The data indicates that foreign born employment has increased by 4.3 million since February 2020 while native born employment has only grown by 471,000. That shift has raised the foreign born share of the workforce in America from 17.5% to 19.6%. Almost one in five. Further analysis here says the impact the disparity in job gains has sparked debate about the structure of the US labor market with Americans largely failing to benefit from new job creation as foreign born employment grows 42 times faster than native born employment. Official layoff that some site has tracked over 335 layoffs in 2026 across various sectors raising further questions about boss's seeming addiction to hiring foreigners rather than locals. And one last thing Victor, and this is the so that's the yin and here's the yang. A different analysis now is showing only 67% of American men are working means one in three American men over the age of 20 are not working. And it says here in the 78 years of data, only two months have ever been lower than today and both were during COVID So this is some. Mark Krikorian, who's our friend, would talk about people you mentioned before, legal immigration. Legal immigration has its great problems too. And I think, think in this employment data we're seeing part of that. What are your thoughts?
B
Victor?
A
Victor, you have to.
B
You're muted.
A
Yeah, that's it.
B
Excuse me. Okay. Can you hear me now? Okay. Yeah. I have mixed emotions because after viewing the type of protesters and ice, I said to myself yesterday, we're building a carport and a guy was here, he was a legal resident and he was for a company that's licensed. And I watched him drill holes through a cement slab very deep with a jackhammer. And then he did a diamond blade cutter to make a perfect square. And then he put forms in for post and he pours cement. And I looked at the people that evening on the news. Would you want to hire one of those antifa type people to do that kind of work? I wouldn't. Would they do it? No. How do they have time to do all this? So what I'm getting at is yes, I would hire Americans and I know there's a lot of Americans who would want the job. But we have too many Americans males in their parents basement, so to speak. And I don't know if it's the war on so called masculinity that people have written eloquently about that when you hear all the time that males, white males are racist and sexist, da da da da da. And it's not just white males, it's black males, Hispanic, second, third are not working as well. But there's something going on that we really haven't figured out yet. Why males have not plugged into the economy when there's plentiful jobs. Maybe it is foreign competition. I can tell you that after watching this guy work. He came at 2:30 yesterday from a job he started at 6 on another cement job. He came in, he apologized, said, am I disturbing you? I was supposed to come here tomorrow morning, but I want to get a head start. Then he worked from 2:30 to 8 at night and he spoke English, he was a legal resident. But I just thought why can't some kids that are 18 that choose not to go to college? A lot of them do. But why are they living at home? Why are they not doing what he's doing?
A
The American dream for a Lot of parents is to not sweat.
B
I think I used to resent it, but, you know, I had an uncle who was. I think we mentioned him, Tango. He was a cowboy. And when I came back, I was 24, and I thought I was hot stuff because I was getting a PhD at Stanford. I was almost done, and I thought, wow, I'll get my PhD at 25. And he had the opposite point of view. He saw me in the driveway and he had a kind of an accent. Hey, what are you doing there, Richter? And I said, I'm just kidding. Well, have you ever. Have you ever got a job? I said, yes, I've been a ta. You've been a ta? What's that? Well, I said, well, I come, I teach for the professors, I help the students, but I also worked on the ranch. You know that. Yeah, you putter around, you know, your summer, but you know how you've been in school your whole life. You went to kindergarten, you went to kind. You call it kindergarten. You went to kindergarten, and then you went right to college, and then you went to more college. Now you're. You're 24. And he said, do you have a house? You got any money? I felt like the guy in George Bailey, you know, when he goes. George Bailey goes into Pottersville, and Lionel Barrymore goes, do you have collateral? Do you have. And he says, no, I don't. I have my goodwill. He said, I'm sorry, that didn't cut much. I said to him, well, I'm kind of educated, and I was married at the, the, you know, at 23. And he said, well, is your. You think you were a good catch? Your wife? You think you're. Did you get her a house? And I said, well, I don't know. And you don't know. Well, you know, When I was 13 years old, I ran four horses from New Mexico to California, and I. I was on my. I was horseback herding cattle. When I was 14 and 15, I didn't get a chance to go to college. And that kind of. I always resented that. But there was something to that about. You know what I mean? Yeah. This old ancient idea that males are rated as desirable by the female sex if they have some umph or get going about them or they take destiny in their own hands rather than, wow, you know, it's not. And we're in the. Well, you know, And I was shocked by what he said. And I think I've also said, when I got my PhD, I didn't go to the graduation. The gown, I didn't My parents didn't go. I just came home and my father said, what happened? I said, I got it. Where's your. Your gown? I said, I didn't go. He said, well, you didn't even tell us when it was. I said, would you have gone? Well, I don't know. I was pretty busy. So he said, you know, we got a dehydrator down there and roof needs to be fixed. You go down there with manual and you guys just work. And that's what I did the first day. And that was the best thing that ever happened to me. It really was. And when you read these stories, Jack, that these AI centers are going up and they need 500,000 electricians. Electricians are like. When we did my wiring, I had two guys, Armando and Juan, and they were US Citizens, of course, but watching them was like watching brain surgery, you know what I mean? The circuits. And I'd say, well, this amp. No, it's not that amp. You don't do that amp. And I said, do you need 14 or 12? No, you don't know what you're talking about. And it's a science. It's a science. And how they did it, I don't know. But this house is beautifully wired now. And plumbers, we have the wrong value system. People who use their hands and can do stuff like that, they're just as valuable, if not more valuable. And it's too bad that. That so many of our kids are going to college or jc and they take three units here and six units there, and they major in psych or sociology, communications, pr when they can get on with their lives.
A
The Beatitudes, Victor. The Beatitudes said that I think the meek will inherit the Earth, but I think it's the plumbers and the electricians who will. In fact, hey, let's. I know we have to. To end us a little early. Let's just get one last quick topic for you to opine on, Victor. And it's one that's like, can you make this up? Here's the headline. Trans Period Pride. It's Pride Month, folks, as you know. So Massachusetts now, which now used to be the National Organization for Women, is sponsoring this trans period pride 2026. This is in Boston on June 17th. And by period, I mean the thing that happens to ladies. Join us for our third annual Trans Period Pride consciousness raising. We'll be learning about trans experiences with menstruation from the Massachusetts Trans Political Coalition and hold a group discussion to connect and share. This event is free to Attend and both members of the trans community and their allies are welcome to attend. Please RSVP cater dinner will be approved and free period underwear will be given to all the. Wait, wait, wait.
B
What does that mean?
A
I don't know. And I have a wife and two daughters. I don't know what period underwear.
B
But underwear. Does that mean ancient underwear from different chronological periods?
A
No. I think it.
B
Oh, when you're menstruating. When you're menstruating. Yes.
A
Are they going to call it menstruate? I guess there's men in menstruation. Neither think about the word But Victor, this is this just insanity in our society.
B
But you know what? It reminds me because we're historically illiterate, these people feel that they discovered something around 2015 called transsexual transgenderism. But all they have to do is go read sexologists. Not just Freud, but people like Havelock Ellis, 19th century, early 20th century. They describe what they call gender dysphoria or sexual ambiguity or hermaphroditis. All of these things. And basically they categorized people who had physical characteristics of one sex but psychologically or mentally they were on the other sex. And this was confusion. And they actually did data studies and it's about.001%. And they were working with a long trained in the Hippocratic corpus, Galen, ancient medical texts. They talk about it. Catullus, the great Roman republican poet, wrote a poem called the Attis poem. It's about a young man who is imbued with eastern feminist ideology. Religious zeal, ecstatic experience very contrary to the cold rationality of the Olympic gods. Okay. And then one of his fit was Cybele. He castrates himself. And then the pronouns in the poem change from ILI to illah that he's now a woman. And then it wears off. And then the revulsion starts that he has betrayed his. And he sits there. The word is pondera in Latin, as I recall the poem, meaning the weight of his organs have been gone. They're gone and he's in deep psychological crisis. If you go to the Petronius Satyricon, there's transvestism, there's transsexualism, there's everything. So what I'm getting at, this is not a new phenomenon. It was known throughout periods of Western civilization. Sometimes it was mocked, sometimes the wealthy and the affluent indulged in sexual ambiguity. But if you all of a sudden think that around 2015 you. You were a new group and it wasn't.009% of the population. It's 25% of the kids at Dartmouth or somewhere not Dartmouth, but Brown or someone are identifying as they'd like to transition, then you should be very suspect that. It's sort of like when I was a young kid, it was hula hoops and Dunkin yo yos. When my parents were young, it was hula hoop. How many goldfish you could swallow and how many you fit into a phone booth and stuff. Or a Volkswagen.
A
Yeah, glory days.
B
I'm not trying to mock it. I'm just saying that it became a fad that parents in Hollywood said my son is trans or something or my daughter is trans. And then we don't look at it rationally or empirically. We don't say those drugs under any circumstances are quite dangerous. That you're taking these hormonal drugs, these steroids, all. They're very dangerous drugs, especially at your age. Or we don't say before you change your body or sculpt your body or mutilate your body, you should be very, very careful about that because it's irreversible. We don't talk about that. We don't talk about the inordinate amount of trans people who are on medications who have committed these shootings things. It's hushed up.
A
You know, you were told if. Well, if you don't. If you don't change, you're apt to commit suicide. And the suicide rates are far higher, far higher for someone who's gone through the. I mentioned on the show we had a special guest while you were recovering, Victor. I went to a conference of detransitioners and it was. I felt for them. I'm glad they've realized the insanity they were in. But they are the walking wounded and will be for the rest of their lives. It was just a terrible sight to see. So anyway, Victor, let's close out. I got a couple of things to mention. One somebody wrote me about. Is that a cartoon? A character of Victor behind you and on the wall behind me, if you're watching on video, our friend Roman Gen had drawn this image of you. So, yes, it is an image of Victor, the great Roman Gen, when he was sober for a few minutes. He drew that. I'm sorry, Roman. I love you. Then I just want to say my colleague Steve at Anvil, Steve Phelan. His brother Dan is a huge fan of the show and I want to give him a shout out.
B
Thank you.
A
And then two. Yeah, he's. I. Oh, I told this to the great Sammy Wink yesterday. I was walking the dog and someone stopped the car and said, hey, Mr. Podcaster. And I'm like, thank you, thank you. Glad you liked the show. And he says, tell me about that. Who's this Sammy Wink? So Sammy's got her fans out there. Of course she does. Now, two things I want to read. Two comments, people. One is from YouTube. AMRI9Y writes, VDH I appreciate you every day. It took me a while to get over the death of Charles Krauthammer. And here you were all along, brilliant mind, soul, and willing to share with us. I'm so happy to hear about your cancer free update. Please stay healthy, happy and with us for a long time to come. And then another comment. Somebody writes historian and far beyond that. Victor Davis Hansen is great. That's all I have to say. There's no further explanation needed. A fantastic man. President Donald J. Trump.
B
So that was great. That's nice of him.
A
Yes, isn't it? All right, Victor, I know you got things to do and.
B
Yeah, I have to. And I was supposed to get the result of my scans for brain, liver, pancreas and lungs. I took all those tests last week. But you know, radiologists being radiologists, it wasn't a. I'm just teasing, but I haven't got them yet. I don't think I have a recurrence because I lost. When I had the cancer before the surgery, I lost 12 pounds. And now that they took out my lobe, it should have weighed something, but I've gained five pounds. So. Cancer patients don't gain weight, I don't think. Okay.
A
God bless ice cream. I'd gain weight too if I had ate the food that the great Mrs. Hansen cooks for you. So she's.
B
Are you making fun of the Delaney Tom Holman menu?
A
No, not at all. I've eaten at your house. She's just. It's always terrific. Terrific. Yeah. Victor, you've been terrific. Thanks for the wisdom you shared and the analysis, folks. We'll be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words. Bye bye.
B
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 out my own website@victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.
Podcast: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Host: Victor Davis Hanson with Jack Fowler
Date: June 4, 2026
Publisher: The Daily Signal
This episode centers on current political and cultural convulsions in the US and UK, comparing reactions to violence and justice in both countries, especially focusing on the Henry Nowak case in the UK and drawing parallels to the George Floyd moment in America. Victor Davis Hanson discusses wider themes of immigration, identity politics, the destabilization of national unity, and how both left and right-wing grievances are creating societal rifts. Additional topics include US-Iran relations, the Maine Senate race scandal, troubling US labor market trends, and the evolution of trans identity in public discourse.
[04:30–10:42]
"They are delaying, delaying, delay. And the only mystery is when the president says he might resign because the... Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is running things..." (05:35)
"Trump just needs to take a piece of paper and say: no missile arsenal, no ability to make nukes, surrender of anything under Pike Mountain or whatever it is... five days to implement those. At the end of five days, we can't guarantee what you will be like." (07:25)
"He's got to protect our sense of deterrence. And they have defined survival as victory." (09:11)
[10:44–14:04]
"We do not like people like Ilhan Omar, who used fraud to come into the country." (12:53)
“It's just too much... anti-American. When I saw the Hezbollah flags on those Columbia [campus protests]… it’s just not working.” (13:24)
[16:08–22:09]
“The DEI police... went to the anti DEI person who was dying… They just completely ignored him and kept the cuffs off. And he literally bled to death in front of them.” (17:13)
"If you're going to be a collective, then people are going to say, well, then this is what you do. If you want to be individuals, then act like individuals." (19:53)
[22:09–25:29]
“This is the anti George Floyd scenario... In Britain, there will be no mass arson, riots, nothing.” (22:29)
[26:14–31:39]
"The left has used this word, indigenous peoples... But my point is Britain has indigenous people too." (26:23)
"We have so many people who come here… and they start lecturing us on how sinful and stupid we are and how morally superior they are." (29:34)
[34:44–37:58]
"You can't be a victim and not hate America because it is one of the great achievements of human [history]... you have to be oppressed." (34:44)
[40:38–44:44]
"He’s pushed every button: sex pervert... crook... hypocrite... mean-spirited... There's nothing more outrageous he can do to turn off a voter." (41:38)
[48:18–52:18]
"All of that... was another staged antifa protest funded by left wing foundations..." (50:43)
[52:18–61:13]
"People who use their hands and can do stuff like that, they're just as valuable, if not more valuable. And it's too bad that so many of our kids are going to college... when they could get on with their lives." (60:08)
[61:13–66:27]
"All they have to do is go read sexologists... They describe what they call gender dysphoria... basically... about .001%." (62:51)
The episode is candid, critical, and deeply historical, with Hanson’s characteristic blend of scholarly detachment, empirical skepticism, and cultural commentary. It's rooted in firsthand experience (Hanson references his California farm and local Sikh temple), with a tone that is urgent yet grounded, observational, and sometimes barbed.
For listeners who missed the episode, this summary provides a comprehensive roadmap to the major topics, unforgettable turns of phrase, and Hanson's historical lens on today’s biggest controversies.