Victor Davis Hanson: The Brown University and Bondi Beach Shootings Demand More Than Anti-Gun Talking Points

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Victor Davis Hanson: The Brown University and Bondi Beach Shootings Demand More Than Anti-Gun Talking Points

Podcast: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Host: Victor Davis Hanson, with Jack Fowler
Date: December 18, 2025
Publisher: The Daily Signal

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson provides historical and cultural commentary on recent political events, focusing on the Brown University and Bondi Beach shootings. He critiques the reflexive political response of "gun control" and explores deeper societal and cultural issues, especially around immigration, assimilation, and political rhetoric. The conversation covers Donald Trump’s controversial social media habits, the broader context of leftist violence, anti-Semitism, assimilation failures, and declines in California’s governance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Failures of Assimilation and Cultural Tensions in Violent Incidents

• Brown University and Bondi Beach Shootings:
  Both incidents prompt immediate calls for gun control, which Hanson criticizes as a “moral out” that avoids addressing core issues of cultural integration.
  • (27:49, 28:03, 29:32)
  • “The problem in Australia was not guns, just like it’s in England, it’s knives. It's not knives when it’s letting people into the country whose culture is antithetical to the tradition and norms of that society. And when they do that, instead of giving them a crash course in civic education, assimilation, integration, acculturation, they give them the opposite message.” — Victor Davis Hanson [29:32]
  • “You qualify for DEI. Here’s where you get your support... and here's the script that you use to attack conservatives and join us. And that leads to this stuff.” — VDH [29:39, 29:42]
• Discussion connects violence to failures in integrating new immigrants and to leftist political incentives.
  • Hanson sees a causal link between DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) initiatives and the erosion of social cohesion.

2. Critique of the Left’s Responses to Violence and Anti-Semitism

• Superficial Reactions and Refusal to Address Causes:
  • Politicians responding to anti-Semitic violence with “weasel words” like “that’s not who we are” and appointing new envoys/czars instead of facing the underlying issues.
  • “I am getting so tired of these weasel words... that’s not who we are. This is intolerable. You have no allowance for that here. Yeah, you do.” — VDH [30:15, 30:22]
  • Criticism that there's no meaningful deterrence or accountability.
• Statistical Asymmetries Ignored:
  • Points out the asymmetry in hate crimes statistics—anti-Semitism dwarfs Islamophobia statistically in the West, but authorities equivocate out of political calculation.
  • “There’s no need to investigate Islamophobia until you have eliminated anti-Semitism because it’s a much greater problem statistically.” — Jack Fowler [31:27]

3. Donald Trump’s Controversial Social Media and Political Strategy

• The Rob Reiner Incident:
  • Trump’s insensitive post after Rob Reiner’s tragic death is critiqued. Hanson invokes moral standards about speaking ill of the recently deceased, referencing the dictum nil nisi bonum de mortuis.
  • “Under no circumstances when you have very, very sensitive matters should he ever tweet. Because what he’s doing is he's ruining all the goodwill that is accruing to him by his counter revolutionary and successful program.” — VDH [08:51]
• General Issues with Trump’s Media Habits:
  • Argues Trump’s unnecessary provocations and “unenforced errors” undermine his administration’s substantial policy successes.
  • Suggests creating a rapid-response system and an “ethics czar” to review communications before public release.
• Practical and Moral Cases Against Trump’s Approach:
  • “You can’t throw away all these solid achievements by tweeting because what you’re doing is you’re losing the independent voter.” — VDH [10:04]
  • Urges internal discipline to avoid self-sabotage:
    “Take a deep breath, reorganize, and call everybody in and say, we’re not going to talk to the press on our first impulse.” — VDH [16:04]

4. China, Trade, and Technology Transfers

• U.S. Chip Sales to China:
  • Hanson expresses skepticism about U.S. agreements to sell advanced semiconductor chips to China, highlighting the tension between economic growth and national security.
  • “One of the things that you ran on... was you couldn’t trust the Chinese. They were at war with us. And everybody was selling America out by going over there and investing.” — VDH [19:14]
  • Critiques “art of the deal” negotiation style for potentially undermining U.S. interests.

5. Antisemitism, Conspiracy Theories, and Turning Point USA

• Discussion of Charlie Kirk’s Widow, Erica Kirk:
  Responds to attacks and conspiracy theories targeting her after Kirk’s murder.
  • “The mortal sin is these people who are suggesting that there were insiders among the group of Turning Point USA staffers and hierarchy, maybe including her…” — VDH [36:58]
  • Emphasizes the toxicity of public insinuations without evidence.
• Critique of Right-Wing Figures Spreading Conspiracies:
  • Disappointed in public figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens for amplifying anti-Semitic tropes and conspiracy-mongering.
  • Notes alarming normalization of such discourse on both political extremes.

6. California’s Decline: The Model of Dysfunction

• Review of State Failures:
  Hanson summarizes Leo Hanian’s recent article, lamenting the decay of California’s infrastructure, education, and energy policy.
  • “If I wanted to destroy California... I’d raise taxes to 13.3%, raise sales tax, have the highest gas prices, call the middle class racist, gerrymander the state, open the borders, bring in 10 million people, price electricity so high a quarter can’t pay...” — VDH, satirical summary [48:12-52:53]
  • Points to policies that export environmental costs abroad while restricting domestic production (oil, lumber, etc.).
• Comparison to UK’s Self-Defeating Policies:
  Draws parallels with British energy policy—banning domestic production, importing the same resources at higher cost.
• Elite Detachment from Policy Consequences:
  Suggests California’s wealthy urban class pursues liberal policies without suffering the consequences—treating the broader population as “lab rats.”

7. Broader Historical & Societal Reflections

• Persistence of Societal Problems Despite Known Solutions:
  • “We are all aware of the problems and we all are aware of the medicine. And the medicine is worse than the disease, basically.” — VDH paraphrasing Livy [62:07]
  • Describes national paralysis in the face of necessary but politically difficult reforms (debt, immigration enforcement, etc.).
• Exhaustion with Political Discourse:
  • Hanson expresses personal frustration and fatigue with systemic issues and political inertia.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Gun Control as a “Moral Out”:
  “Too often when a person says our reaction is gun control, that is a moral out so they will not address the problem.” — VDH [29:29/28:40]
• On DEI and Assimilation:
  “You qualify for DEI. Here’s where you get your support, here’s your entitlements, and here’s the script that you use to attack conservatives and join us. And that leads to this stuff.” — VDH [29:39-29:48]
• On Trump’s Tweets:
  “You can’t throw away all these solid achievements by tweeting, because what you’re doing is you’re losing the independent voter that will make your counter revolution successful or not successful as exemplified by their turnout and vote in the midterm.” — VDH [10:04]
• On Immediate Commentary After Death:
  “Don’t say anything unless it’s good about the recently dead.” — VDH, quoting ancient principle [07:24]
• On California’s ruination:
  “If I wanted to destroy California, it would be very hard to do... [details decades of bad policies] ...but they did it. We’re all from the Bay Area. Thank you. It’s hard to do, but they did it.” — VDH [52:53]
• On failing to implement obvious solutions:
  “We are all aware of the problems... the medicine is worse than the disease, basically. And that’s our problem in this country...” — VDH [62:07]

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Noteworthy Segments with Timestamps

• 00:29–01:26: Hanson on the superficiality of gun control debates; need to address lack of assimilation
• 06:34–16:07: Deep dive into Trump’s social media errors and internal campaign discipline
• 27:49–32:00: Analysis of Brown and Bondi Beach shootings; critique of cultural integration failures
• 36:00–41:12: Defending Erica Kirk, exposing conspiracy-mongering on right-wing media and public grieving standards
• 47:07–53:11: Satirical breakdown of how California’s political class "destroyed" the state
• 59:01–62:07: Parallels with UK policy failures; structural detachment of elites
• 62:07–64:12: Discussion of U.S. political paralysis, reforms needed but not pursued
• 65:52–66:49: Listener comments and closing reflections

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Tone and Style

Hanson’s tone blends scholarly depth with sardonic humor and frustration, especially when discussing failures by American elites, misguided political trends, and historical amnesia. Jack Fowler’s interjections offer clarifying questions and examples, maintaining a conversational but substantive mood.

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Summary Conclusion

Victor Davis Hanson uses the tragedies at Brown University and Bondi Beach as launching points to challenge simplistic political responses and illuminate underlying issues of cultural alienation, assimilation failures, and elite detachment. He calls for intellectual honesty, policy discipline, and moral seriousness in political leadership—particularly from Trump and among policymakers dealing with immigration, crime, and societal decline. His reflections on California’s self-inflicted wounds and widespread anti-Semitism serve as cautionary tales about what can happen when politics is driven by virtue-signaling, abdication of responsibility, and the comforts of elite detachment.

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Transcript

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[Victor Davis Hanson]

May apply Too often when a person says there are reaction is gun control. That is a moral out so they will not address the problem. The problem in Australia was not guns, just like it's in England, it's knives. It's not knives when it's letting people into the country whose culture is antithetical to the tradition and norms of that society. And when they do that, instead of giving them a crash course in civic.

[Jack Fowler]

Education, assimilation, integration, acculturation, they give them the opposite message.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You qualify for dei.

[Jack Fowler]

Here's where you get your support, here's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Your entitlements, and here's the script that.

[Jack Fowler]

You use to attack conservatives and join us.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And that leads to this stuff.

[Jack Fowler]

That leads to shooting people at the Holocaust Museum.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That leads to pushing Jews on campus.

[Jack Fowler]

That's what it does.

[Podcast Host]

Well, hello ladies. Hello gentlemen. Welcome to Victor Davis Hansen In His Own Words. I'm Jack Fowler, the man lucky enough to get to ask Victor questions, the kind of questions I think you would ask him. We are talking on Monday, December 15, and this particular episode will be up on Thursday the 18th. Victor is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and he's a senior contributor for the Daily Signal, which is the happy home of this podcast. Victor's website is the Blade of Perseus. The web address there is victorhansen.com I might as well get this all out of the way, Victor, you if you're on X, Victor's handle is at VD Hansen. And if you want to subscribe to the Blade of Perseus, it's $65 a year. If you're not a subscriber yet, give yourself the Blade of Perseus as a Christmas present. You can read the exclusive articles Victor writes for it and Victor's on Facebook at VDH's Morning Cup. Lot to talk about today, Victor. There's always a lot to talk about. Yesterday we recorded some a program and we did talk about the Brown University shooting murder murders, plural. There's an update to be had there. Rob Reiner, the actor and director, has died and Donald Trump has issued a really troubling truth post, truth social post about that. We'll get your thought on that. Tremendous amount of material on California circling the drain and Somalis in Minnesota. And maybe we'll have Erica Kirk. We have to talk about Erica Kirk. So that's the panorama of topics for today, and we'll get to them when we come back from these important messages.

[Tony Kennett]

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[Podcast Host]

We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. So Victor, as we discussed before we started recording a few few issues relating to Donald Trump and maybe lump them all together. Of course the most prominent one that's out and the most current one today, that's today is his truth social post about Rob Reiner. We have hardcore leftist but a movie director, many popular movies and famous to some of us boomers, more so as meathead from all in the Family. He was murdered by his allegedly murdered. I should say by. And his wife murdered by his son who was very deeply troubled, long troubled kid. And then there's a couple of other. I'll just put this into the troubling Trump category of the sale of permitting the sale of chips, important chips to China from Nvidia. America is going to get a piece of the action. But I mean are we, are we giving important military technological information to the.

[Jack Fowler]

People who are truly our enemies?

[Podcast Host]

And then there's been a spate of other from last couple of weeks of, of Donald Trump pardons, including for the ex president of Honduras that to me are just head scratchers. So Victor, a lot of head scratching going on for a lot of people. Anyway, your thoughts particularly about the Rob Reiner?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, I mean he was a very talent. I think people forget that we call him meathead and but he did do I think When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men.

[Jack Fowler]

Few Good Men was a good movie.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Especially that it had the unintended effect. Remember Jack Nicholson had that outburst, you can't handle the truth.

[Jack Fowler]

And it was supposed to show a.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Deranged military, but he inadvertently made Jack.

[Jack Fowler]

Nicholson and sort of, I don't know, a counter hero.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Because people would quote that all the time.

[Jack Fowler]

You can't handle the truth. But not in the context in which Reiner had intended.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He was a very vocal man on the left. But I always, since I was a kid, from my parents, my grandparents and classical literature and Christianity always followed the.

[Jack Fowler]

Dictum nihil dicere nisi bonum de mortuis. Don't say anything unless it's good about the recently dead. So when truth social posting from Trump comes out, then he says he died because of Trump derangement syndrome or the.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Anger that he, I don't know if he's referring to. He thinks the son was angry at his father's politics.

[Jack Fowler]

I doubt that seriously. I don't know where any people in Brentwood who are pro Trump people of any mental state.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But the point is this.

[Jack Fowler]

I think that's what you were hinting on is.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You can't get angry.

[Jack Fowler]

I can get angry.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You can get angry. We're angry at all those people like.

[Jack Fowler]

Jasmine Crockett or all those Ilion Omar who said terrible things about Charlie Cook after he was dead.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But you have no moral credibility if.

[Jack Fowler]

You condemn that and you don't condemn what Trump said. And because.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He said something right after the death and it wasn't just the death, it was kind of a violent and grotesque death.

[Jack Fowler]

Like Charlie Kirk, she was shot in.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The, in the neck and the Reiners.

[Jack Fowler]

Throats were slit by their own son.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That's something out of Sophoclean tragedy. And at this time something is wrong.

[Jack Fowler]

With the Trump circle.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And what I mean by that is under no circumstances when you have very, very sensitive matters should he ever tweet. Because what he's doing is he's ruining all the goodwill that is accruing to.

[Jack Fowler]

Him by his counter revolutionary and successful program.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then he puts the onus. What is Carolyn Levitt going to do now?

[Jack Fowler]

She's going to go out in front and she's going to try to answer questions on the economy?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

No, she's not going to have any questions. But what do you think about Rob Reiner?

[Jack Fowler]

Now that's a lose lose situation, as.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It should be, because she's either going to say, well, Rob Reiner was a very crazy, obsessed anti Trump.

[Jack Fowler]

And they're going to say, have you no decency? He's dead. He was murdered. He was grotesquely murdered.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Then what is she going to say? Well, we, we, we want to send.

[Jack Fowler]

Condolences to the family.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And they'll say, but he didn't do that. So I think what they're going to.

[Jack Fowler]

Have to do is have some kind.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Of, I don't know what, I don't.

[Jack Fowler]

Know Trump apologists, but he, he's got.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

To do something because what is happening with these tweets and I know he's.

[Jack Fowler]

Gone through all of these things I wr, I wrote a book about, it's coming out.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But you can't throw away all these solid achievements by tweeting because what you're doing is you're losing the independent voter.

[Jack Fowler]

That will make your counter revolution successful or not successful as exemplified by their turnout and vote in the midterm. But that's just a practical reason not to do it. There's also a moral reason not to do it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And this brings up a larger and more controversial question. Because Jack, you and I have been.

[Jack Fowler]

In the conservative movement or half century, we know a lot of these people.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I was shocked at Joe Biden's greediness, at Hunter Biden's wastrel lifestyle, at shaking down Burisma, China, Romania, that whole circle, the Biden conspiracy cabal family, all the lifestyles that they lived with that they didn't earn. My point is this. When you come in and all the 51 authorities, that whole corrupt lawfare, you have to be offer a contrast. And I think it'd be a good time with this shocking thing for everybody in the Trump team to take a Deep breath and say, call everybody in and say we're going to have a new rapid response and the President is going to submit something and there's going to be someone that he trusts, but somebody of sterling reputation who's going to say this hurts you or it doesn't hurt you.

[Jack Fowler]

And if it hurts you under his.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That's not going to go out. Otherwise he's going to tweet away his accomplishments. Second, there has to be some kind of ethics czar. I don't like that word, but I mean, somebody's got to say to somebody.

[Jack Fowler]

Look, I have a simple question for you.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You have made X amount of money. Would you have made X amount of money had you not been close to.

[Jack Fowler]

The people in this administration that had.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The power to grant private commercial concerns access deals, etc. In other words, are there people. And I don't want to hear the argument or the defense or the apology. Well, somebody does it. If you want to invest in the United States and you need to know who to talk to, you hire a consulting fir and then they. You pay them 15 or 20% and I'm only charging them 15. And yes, but that was not your.

[Jack Fowler]

Job before Trump was elected.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So I would like to see the Trump people be beyond suspicion. I'm not saying. I'm not speaking as a puritanical person. When Stanley Baldwin died, the prime minister before Neville Chamberlain and Churchill was later asked to reflect on that. He said it would have been better if the had the man never lived.

[Jack Fowler]

Because he had disarmed Britain and he had refused to greenlight Hurricane and Spitfire fire production.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And they came within a hair of.

[Jack Fowler]

Losing the battle of Britain for that reason.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But that wasn't right in the immediate.

[Jack Fowler]

Death of Stanley Baldwin.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And I can remember as a young person that because of the. You're too young, Jack. But when I was a young scrapling person, there was a woman named Madame New and she was, I think the.

[Jack Fowler]

Brother of dm, the Prime Minister, President of Vietnam.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And he was removed in a coup. And I think it was engineered by the.

[Jack Fowler]

In a church, right? Removed in a church. Yes.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And he was a Christian and he.

[Jack Fowler]

Was removed by the Kennedy administration and.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Madame New on Palm the November 22.

[Jack Fowler]

1963 assassination of JFK said something to.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The effect and leaders of my age.

[Jack Fowler]

Will remember and others will fact check me.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But she said something along the lines.

[Jack Fowler]

Of Jeremiah Wright chickens coming home to roost, or you know what I mean?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Something like that. And everybody was rightfully outraged at that savagery, although she had a point that her point was not empathy or decency.

[Jack Fowler]

But she was saying that your country killed.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

My family member. So I guess what I'm saying is if I see all the things he's.

[Jack Fowler]

Doing, whether closing the border or getting.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Rid of the nuclear threat in Iran.

[Jack Fowler]

Or we'll probably have some kind of ceasefire in Ukraine soon. We've restored discerns abroad. The recruitment is up in the military in a fantastic manner. They're deporting over 2 self deporting or deporting 2 million people. For all the talk on the Wall Street Journal every day that it's bad going to get worse. We do have 2.8 inflation that's lower than the 3% he came in.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We're looking at 3.5.

[Jack Fowler]

3.8 would have been 4 points of GDP growth in the fourth quarter and unemployment's a little high at 4.4. But it'll go down as you start to deport workers and as wages will go up. We have the cheapest gas in five years. Not since Trump's first administration, during the lockdown when nobody was driving. So my point is, all of that is on the scale. So why would you tweet something and then nullify the work that you've been doing to persuade people that economically, strategically, security wise, they're all in a better situation than they were under Biden. And why would.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So I would just think, take a deep breath, reorganize and call everybody in and say, we're not going to talk.

[Jack Fowler]

To the press on our first impulse.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'm very close to Cash Patel. We had him on the program that was one of our most widely viewed.

[Podcast Host]

Perfect, right?

[Jack Fowler]

Yes, he was very good.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But when he kind of, what's the word, Jumped the gun with the Charlie Kirk assassination, he did the same thing with the Brown. He announced that they had somebody in custody. And whether he used the proper nomenclature.

[Jack Fowler]

Person of interest or suspect, I don't know.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But that was not the case.

[Jack Fowler]

Person.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It just seems to me that everybody is doing two things in the, in the administration right now. One, they're trying to outdo Trump and be combative. And then they want to. Their accomplishments are juxtaposed to Biden and that's legitimate. So he can say, you know, we are not spying on traditional Catholics.

[Jack Fowler]

We're not spying on school board visitors, to the school board, parents.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We're not doing any of that. But you don't have to keep saying crooked Joe Biden. We're not doing this.

[Jack Fowler]

It doesn't work.

[Podcast Host]

That's all Victor I'm going to circle back on that chip sale. But first I want to let our listeners and our viewers know that you've been a close friend of Dennis Prager's for many years and have had the privilege of working with his remarkable team at Prageru. You've appeared in several of their five minute videos. They've reached tens of millions worldwide. And here at Victor Davis Hanson and His Own Word, we value that over 60% of PragerU's audience is under the age of 35, the very generation most in need of enduring American principles. At a time when education and media often erode confidence in our country, Prageru stands firm in defending truth, reason and the legacy of Western civilization. So we are proud to be part of their family. And we encourage you listeners and viewers to please join [e-mail] VDH your tax deductible gift is triple matched, triple matched through December 31st. So please give [e-mail] VDH and we thank the good people from Prager U for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, any thoughts about that chip sale? Does that trouble you?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'm not qualified. The answer I would say would be no, but I'm not qualified to know what degree we have leakage. In other words, if we said you can't sell chips of this caliber and sophistication to the Chinese and somebody going.

[Jack Fowler]

To write an op ed in the Wall Street Journal and say, I'm a.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Sophisticated electrical engineer, computer engineer, and this is stupid, you can't stop it, they're.

[Jack Fowler]

Going to leak it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So I don't know, but ostensibly it reminds me of the 600,000 Chinese students.

[Jack Fowler]

It's not a good idea.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And what I'm getting at here, and this is connected, when Trump makes these deals, he, I understand that his he especially now, they are in overdrive to get deals made and get the actual fruits of their labors apparent before the midterms. If you want somebody says, I want a trillion dollars in foreign investment, then you say, I need it now. We need to get these jobs going. Okay, but your brand, President Trump, is the MAGA base. And one of the things that you ran on, besides you were going to correct the corruptness of the Biden consortium family consortium, was you couldn't trust the Chinese. They were at war with us. And everybody was selling America out by going over there and investing.

[Jack Fowler]

Okay, so you have two polar opposite forces here.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He has one force that says we've got to make as many deals as Quickly and raise as much money and get the economy moving versus you can't trust the Chinese. So in art of the deal fashioning, he is trying to give the Chinese some little lever. We'll let another 300,000 in if you give us a good trade deal. We'll let you have the chips if you give us a good trade deal. But on the other hand, he's violating.

[Jack Fowler]

The very principle that other people did.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, he's not doing it for his own company and he's going to give the revenue in part to the United States. But you're in power. When you say you're going to allow 300,000 more Chinese and when already 2 to 10,000 of them are technological spies and you're going to double that number.

[Jack Fowler]

It doesn't make sense. Does not make sense. And again.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Somebody'S going to say, well, Victor, if you were in his place and they were attacking you every single day, you would. Well, yes, I would.

[Jack Fowler]

That's not why. That's why I don't ever run for office. I'm incapable of handling that. Most of us are.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But if you want to run for.

[Jack Fowler]

Office, then you've got to, you've got to be consistent. And I'm worried because these are unenforced errors, Jack. They're not, they're not forced errors, they're unenforced. In other words, the things that he.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Wants to get done. And they put their Doug Burgum at the Interior Department. Wonderful. You can say all you want negatively about Pig Hexa, but he got the recruitment back up to where it is and he's got a deterrent force. You can say all you want about Pam Bondi, but so far the DOJ is working pretty well.

[Podcast Host]

And.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

John Radcliffe's doing a great job at the CIA. So things are going well. The achievements are there. The foreign policy record is for everybody to see. The economic stimuli are already in place. You've got people like Scott Bessant, Kevin Wash, Kevin Hasser. You got really brilliant people around you.

[Jack Fowler]

All you have to do is let.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Them do their stuff and stick to what you campaigned on. But don't give the Chinese any bones. That hurts our national security. In lieu of a fast paced deal. I don't think. And please don't, don't anybody who dies.

[Jack Fowler]

There's a 48 hour, 36 hour, five day grace period.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You know, I had an uncle, I won't mention his name, but he was really. I was the only one in my generation who liked him. The other people that my age had.

[Jack Fowler]

Good reason not to like him. He was very, very wealthy, very successful. He was a close relative of ours.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And he would come in when we were losing money and come and you know, he'd kind of.

[Jack Fowler]

He was from the old school. You know, you guys can't make it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You know, you can't get a loan to get your crop loan. I got 5 million in the bank right now, getting 18%. How's that?

[Jack Fowler]

You know, that kind of stuff.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then he lived to be, I think 98.

[Jack Fowler]

And when I went to the funeral, there was only about eight people there. And the person made the mistake of saying, does anybody have, you know, they have that custom at some funerals, Jack, where they ask people to say something in the crowd about their. But they shouldn't have done that because most of the things were not nice that people said, but they weren't overt.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They were thinking like, well, you know, I told him he could have the manure from my lot. So he took his trucks over there and he loaded them up and they.

[Jack Fowler]

Got stuck all day because I told.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Him not to go in there.

[Jack Fowler]

But they did.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He did anyway. Then we had to go bail him out. And then he called me up. I shouldn't have to pay you because I lost money on the deal because you didn't have a dry road.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, that's just.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I just wanted to throw that in.

[Jack Fowler]

At the funeral, that kind of stuff. Well, it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then somebody asked me to say something and I said, he is what he is. He was a self made man. I tried to think of everything positive.

[Jack Fowler]

About him because death is the.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The end of the corporal existence.

[Jack Fowler]

And we don't know how individuals will end up on the other side.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But it's not. It's not a good thing. Doesn't eulogy a beautiful thing to say? Yeah, right.

[Jack Fowler]

That's what we're supposed to do.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Jack Fowler]

And you don't criticize people when they die. And especially you don't criticize people who die violently. And you don't criticize people in Oedipine.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

An Oedipian fact, a fashion that are.

[Jack Fowler]

Killed by their sons. It's just a family tragedy.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And I was not a big fan of hers. I was not a crit. He didn't bother me like he did a lot of people because he always attacked Trump. He attacked Trump all the time. But there were. I don't think some of his things were very good, but I do think he made two or three good movies.

[Jack Fowler]

I really thought his father, who lived to be. I think 98 Carl Reiner was very.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Talented and he was part of a culture in Brentwood. If anybody's driven through that neighborhood or.

[Jack Fowler]

Visited there, it's the most upscale, one of the most upscale scale in California. It's all left wing, very big homes, OJ's former area.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So it is what it is as they say and you can, you can disagree with what he said, you can do things. But I just remember very carefully everybody on the left seemed to be ghoulish.

[Jack Fowler]

And revel in Charlie Kirk's death and.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He didn't, he didn't. He said something that was nice about.

[Jack Fowler]

Him, how tragic it was.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And so I just wish and the sad thing about what I'm saying is.

[Jack Fowler]

It'S not that Trump's not capable of it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He's got a very kind side.

[Jack Fowler]

He's, he's calls people up. When he sees people grieving for their children who have been killed overseas, he doesn't look at his watch like Biden. He, he looks at them, he calls them up. He's worried about. So.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I have a lot of anecdotes of people have called me about Trump.

[Jack Fowler]

And said you know, you know, I.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thought he didn't care but you know.

[Jack Fowler]

I talked to this guy whose mother.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Died and needed a burial and he.

[Jack Fowler]

Paid for it or I knew these guys were going to serve a special.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thing and he knew they were going.

[Jack Fowler]

To not have tips is what and he just went out and opened his wallet and gave him. I hear that all the time.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So it would somebody he needs to.

[Jack Fowler]

Just.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Get out of the night the news cycle.

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Jack Fowler]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

Put the phone down. Hey Victor, before we take a break and I think we should talk about Erica Kirk when we come back from the break but let's just one last thing about the Brown University shootings murders was and, and the information is still very sketchy but one of the girls the of the two who were murdered, Ella Cook was the president of very small a Brown Young Republican Club young conservative and it seems like from some reports that she was specifically sought out first to be.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We'll see what happens. It is a coincidence that it's the same day as the Bondi beach murders and that's a larger issue but it's very hard to talk until we get concrete information.

[Jack Fowler]

But we do have concrete information about.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Australia and we talked about it last time. I don't understand the calls for gun control immediately when that brave who was.

[Jack Fowler]

An Arab Australian, when he stopped that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Shooter, he didn't have a gun, he.

[Jack Fowler]

Went out and he almost.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He got shot.

[Jack Fowler]

He's almost got killed himself killed.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But had anybody had a gun or if the police had gun training, they.

[Jack Fowler]

Didn'T do anything in Australia for seconds.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Minutes that could have been prevented.

[Podcast Host]

I think, until that guy stopped that shooter.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

No, they had not. And he didn't even have a. He was unarmed. And he paid a terrible price by being severely wounded. But the left always says, we need new gun control. We need new gun control. Somebody, you know, they always said this only happens. No, it happens anywhere. But the point I'm making is too often when a person says our reaction is gun control, that is a moral out. So they will not address the problem. The problem in Australia was not guns, just like it's in England, it's knives. It's not knives when it's letting people into the country whose culture is antithetical to the tradition and norms of that society. And when they do that, instead of giving them a crash course in civic.

[Jack Fowler]

Education, assimilation, integration, culturation, they. They give them the opposite message.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You qualify for dei.

[Jack Fowler]

Here's where you get your support, here's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Your entitlements, and here's the script that.

[Jack Fowler]

You use to attack conservatives and join us.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And that's. That leads to this stuff.

[Jack Fowler]

That leads to shooting people at the Holocaust Museum.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That leads to pushing Jews on campus. That.

[Jack Fowler]

That's what it does.

[Podcast Host]

We could. I think it's fair to lump much of this murdering under leftism.

[Jack Fowler]

I do. There's no deterrence.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You know, another thing I really get. I get really angry at, I think.

[Jack Fowler]

All of us listening.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

As soon as they kill a Jewish person.

[Jack Fowler]

Person. Or shoot a Jewish person. I am getting so tired of these weasel words.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That's not who we are. This is intolerable.

[Jack Fowler]

This will. We.

[Podcast Host]

We.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We have no allowance for that here.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, you do. You do.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Because the first thing you do every time that happens and somebody says you need to address anti Semitism, you do.

[Jack Fowler]

Something like the following. I have just appointed an anti Semitism special envoy. I've just appointed a anti Semitism czar. Take a deep breath.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And one for Islamophobia as well. And then they never tell us what are the actual statistics of people who.

[Jack Fowler]

Shoot people for political purposes that are Jewish, who comprise 6% of 7% of the population versus those who are Muslim in the United States that are three, three and a half.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

What is the symmetry between Jewish on.

[Jack Fowler]

Muslim crime and Muslim on Jewish crime?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And if they are as asymmetrical as the last time I looked, especially hate crime statistics, then I would suggest that.

[Jack Fowler]

There'S no need to investigate Islamophobia until you have eliminated anti Semitism because it's a much greater problem statistically.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But why do they do that?

[Jack Fowler]

Because of politics or they're afraid?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It's almost, I want to be really crass, Jack. It's almost, I'm afraid, to criticize open borders, immigration from the Middle east, radical Islam, river to the sea for what now? Well, let's see.

[Jack Fowler]

Commercial. Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

There's 500 million Arabs and Muslims in.

[Jack Fowler]

The Middle east and they're a lot richer with a lot more oil than 2011 million Jews. Is it my personal safety? Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

If I say something negative about the Quran or Islam or the Muslim community.

[Jack Fowler]

I might be hurt if I say something. And if I call a Jew's name. You think a Jewish terrorist is going to kill me?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

No.

[Jack Fowler]

Is it anti Semitism? Yes. The ancient curse of Europe. That's part of it as well. Is it political? Yes, it's a lot of politics. There's going to be a much greater Arab population according to demographics, even without further immigration than there is a fourth to fifth generation, rapidly assimilating Jewish population. So it's kind of a cowardly calculus that people make. And celebrities, media people, politicians, etc. College presidents clotting, the clotting gaze of the world.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And leaving. Leaving the world for their children and grandchildren to put them at risk.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Very ironic. Because what I take away from the.

[Jack Fowler]

Transformation of Tucker Carlson and then add in Candace Owens and others is that they believe that there's this small cabal of Jews that have all this power.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And are running everything sort of like.

[Jack Fowler]

The wizard of Oz, behind a curtain.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And yet, if that were to be true, they surely don't have much influence because they're a lot more scared people of the Islamic community than they are the Jewish community. The people who can actually make policies or the bureaucrats or the media. Because from their rhetoric and their policies, they will never say one thing. All they have to do is call up Ilya and Omar and say, listen, here's a affidavit. Would you please sign on her penalty of oath. I never married my biological brother. The case closed. We'll never say another word. But she'll never do that. And they're scared to do that. And we know why.

[Jack Fowler]

Because, oh, the Somali community is 89,000 strong in many. Why, whatever. So.

[Podcast Host]

All millionaires from the graph.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Now it's in Ohio, too.

[Jack Fowler]

We learn in parts of Chicago.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Well, Victor, we're going to. Let's Talk about Erica Kirk. And we'll do that when we come back from these important messages.

[Jack Fowler]

Right is still right, even if you stand by yourself.

[Podcast Host]

Chief Justice.

[Hans von Spakowski]

This is Hans von Spakowski, host of the Case in Point podcast, which looks at the hottest cases affecting politics, culture and everyone's daily lives. But we talk about them without confusing legal jargon. And we have interesting guests like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. And we end with reviews of classic Hollywood movies relevant to the topic. Case in Point, the podcast, available everywhere, is you won't want to miss.

[Podcast Host]

We're back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Here we are at the Daily Signal. Happily, today we're recording on Monday the 15th. This episode will be up on Thursday, the 18th. Week before Christmas. My old friend. I love her dearly. Kathryn Lopez wrote a column, her syndicated column. It's titled what the Hell Is Wrong With a Country that Makes a Widow Defend Herself for a Living? And Catherine, for Catherine to use the word hell is.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes. We wouldn't allow her to be on.

[Jack Fowler]

Our podcast using that word. I remember Catherine very well. She was my first editor at National Review. Yeah, Catherine never says anyone.

[Podcast Host]

Here's what she wrote. Victor, I've had paper cuts that took longer to heal than Erica Kirk. That's in quotes. You may have seen this comment on X in recent days. And yes, by the author of a book titled if God Is Love, don't be a jerk. I've also read that she's, quote, hawking her dead husband's book, end quote. And that's far from the worst out there. Other things that are being said about Erica should be made fun of for her. The rings she has for her makeup, for the clothes, for the fact that she's been seen smiling on occasions, or now that she's the CEO of TP usa, that she would dare to raise funds. And that, of course, that she hugged J.D. vance. This lady has taken a beating and yet she is a tough cookie, in my opinion. How she's come out standing.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And you were, you were, you were.

[Jack Fowler]

Much politer and more circumspect than I was.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Because the mortal sin is these people who are suggesting that there were insiders.

[Jack Fowler]

Among the group of Turning Point USA staffers and hierarchy, maybe including her, that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Felt that they had some inkling that either they felt that there was some.

[Jack Fowler]

Inkling that somebody might injure Charlie Kirk and they didn't do anything, or I think.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And remember what we're talking about, everybody, these people who Candace Owens, they never say this explicitly.

[Jack Fowler]

They'll Say, I'm just throwing out, Jack, I'm just going to throw it out there.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'm just going to put it out in the air. And you know, you can believe it.

[Jack Fowler]

Or not, but there were some gps, there were some location GPS points that put a lot of Egyptian planes near Charlie Kirk they were following, I don't know why, or there were some.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I had not just putting it out there.

[Jack Fowler]

There were some Assad people, you know, just rumors, who knows, contacts with some of the people.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And there was, I'm just putting it out there, Jack.

[Jack Fowler]

There were just some word, you know.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Just some, some inkling that Charlie was starting to think, you know, the Jews.

[Jack Fowler]

In Israel are just a little bit too much for me. I think I'm just gonna back off.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And maybe that, maybe a deck.

[Jack Fowler]

I'm just suggesting it now, nothing more.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That might have had just a little.

[Jack Fowler]

Bit of something to do with his death? No, it had. No.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Unless you want to put out an affidavit with time, place, who, when, how, data and show that Kate, you have.

[Jack Fowler]

No business talking about that after his death. And yet they're doing that. For what purpose? I don't know. Clicks, get famous, make money, cause chaos.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But they're.

[Jack Fowler]

It's a sick thing to do.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, well, I have to say that my day job at Anfield, we do extensive work and have done extensive work with, with Turning Point and it's a profoundly important organization and profoundly consequential organization. And I think a fear with her Victor is as, as influential as Charlie Kirk was and towards the end of his life, and who knew that that was going to be the end of his life. But the, the impact he was having on, on the spiritual spirituality of many Americans, young Americans coming back to church, very traceable to him. I think people, some people think she, in her own way, given her own strength, may be as consequential, if not more she. She brings other strengths to the table.

[Jack Fowler]

What would Charlie Kirk, if you could.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Talk to him right now, would you say to him, charlie, would you, given.

[Jack Fowler]

The trauma that has ensued for your.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Children and your wife, would you want.

[Jack Fowler]

Her to go into 19th century mourning.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

In black and seclude herself and turn.

[Jack Fowler]

Over your lifelong work to subordinates and.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Just kind of bow out?

[Jack Fowler]

Or would you want her to press on as she was going, although in more limited fashion, to ensure that your vision for what this group was and what it might do for the United States would continue as it was? I think it was a latter myself. I mean, I didn't know him as well as most people. But I did know him somewhat. I met him a lot. I went out and spoke with him. I did his show sometimes. I talked two weeks before he died with him.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And I think he would probably approve.

[Jack Fowler]

Of what she's doing.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Look, the problem is, in our society, she's a very attractive woman.

[Jack Fowler]

She's young, she's well dressed, she's well spoken.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And that naturally suggests, well, you're flirting or you're getting too much attention or this.

[Jack Fowler]

And that's not fair. It isn't, because she's not trying to do that. She's just trying to say, please don't spin conspiracy theories about my husband and me and my family and my organization.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, she. She's inauthentic. If she was some, you know, rap strumpet, she'd be.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

See, what, what I. And I, I have problems. It's like the thing with Trump. I mean, the thing he said I thought was really wrong and you have to come out and say it, even.

[Jack Fowler]

Though you support what he's trying to do.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I knew Tucker very well.

[Jack Fowler]

At least I was on his show. But when Tucker starts to throw this.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Out and he's been throwing things out, like that eulogy that you and I.

[Jack Fowler]

Talked about, that it's like some people in the Middle east eating hummus and then talking about how to kill Christ. That metaphor simile was very well known. What he was trying to say, the Jews were responsible in some way for this Christ like figure who was not crucified but killed and sacrificial fat.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then to suggest that 9, 11.

[Jack Fowler]

Tower 7, or to suggest there's no evidence of that at all. Concrete evidence.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then to suggest that the Jews.

[Jack Fowler]

Kind of ordered Donald Trump to take out the Iranian.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That was not in our interest.

[Jack Fowler]

That was in our interest. I can guarantee you that. Even if you ask Barack Obama, the architect of the Iran deal, would you like to have delivered on a platter a mission that lost no Americans and ended the Iranian threat for five years? He would have said yes. And now it's about Maduro, Jack, that somehow the removal of Maduro.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Is being engineered by the Jews. I've never seen anything like it.

[Jack Fowler]

I'm 72. I've never seen the left. And the problem, as we talked last time, the right was the watchdog of anti Semitism. Given what the left is, the Democratic Socialists of America, I mean, Mondame and all these people are anti Semites. And you're going to see things that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You haven't seen because we're tiptoeing toward. When I watched that 15 minute or.

[Jack Fowler]

14 minute video of Australia, it was like some sick novel that people were hunting Jews like they were animals, you know what I mean? Like a shooting gallery. And that was in Australia. And I listened to that creepy prime minister try to weasel his way out. Couldn't even condemn it in strong terms. And what was going on.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then to think that we're giving.

[Jack Fowler]

Signals to people, winking and nodding that, yeah, the Jews might have been involved with Charlie Crick. Yeah, the Jews might have been involved with 9, 11, oh, the Jews might have been, you know, getting us into a war with Iran.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then the Jews were doing, they.

[Jack Fowler]

Were trying to get in a war with Venezuela. And then somebody's out there saying, okay, I better stop the Jews. I'll go out, get my gun and shoot some or I'll go out and hit some, or I'll go out to a museum and kill them or I'll go firebomb a Jew. That's what happened. So it's really disturbing.

[Podcast Host]

Well, Victor, we're going to shift gears a little bit, talk about California. But first to our listeners and viewers, if you want to drop extra pounds, if you want to boost energy levels or reduce swelling in your legs and feet, then this message is for you. Pure Health Research is on a mission to make America healthy again. And two of their best selling health supplements are leading the way. The first is Liver health formula. Over 100 million Americans have sluggish liver riddled with fatty deposits. This can kill your metabolism, pile on the pounds and make you feel tired. Liver Health Formula takes care of that. It supports thriving liver health. And with special nutrients like artichoke extract and milk thistle, this is one of the easiest ways to slim down and revitalize your energy levels. Next is lymph system support. If you struggle with fluid buildup or swelling in your legs, ankles or feet, this is for you. The natural ingredients in lymph system support help gently flush extra fluid and toxins out of the body. And right now, for a limited time, you can get 35% off liver health formula and lymph system support along with all 50 plus health supplements pure Health Research has to offer. Head over to PureHealthResearch.com and use the coupon code VICTOR at checkout. That's PureHealthResearch.com with the coupon code VICTOR to save 35% on your order today. And we thank the good people from Pure Health Research for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen. In his own words, Victor there's so many California related topics. But but I want to maybe we can get to some of them after the next break. But there's a great piece by your friend and colleague.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Leo is a very, he's just a wonderful author.

[Jack Fowler]

He really is. He's very soft spoken. He's not self referential. I don't think he gets enough attention. But his dissections of California have been brilliant.

[Podcast Host]

He did a that so folks who are interested in reading this at the But I'm sorry. And Bill. That's right. Yeah. He and Bill Whalen run California on youn Mind. And last week he wrote an article giving the review California 2025. And I'll just read the subheads for the things he's looked at. I think there are five sections. Los Angeles is $1 billion 8 mile bike lane. The high speed rail decades late and perhaps a billion dollars is short aging water storage and conveyance that waits to get prepared. California's gerrymander to squash the Republican majority. What else do we have here? The, the refinery closures that are likely going to lead to $8 a gallon. And by the way, I did read that one.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes. Valero, they've got a big one.

[Podcast Host]

They have.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

There's a big, it's a big one. It's in Benicia, I think or there's Phillips and there's Phillips and Valero and.

[Jack Fowler]

One is up near Richmond. One's in Benicia. And my gosh.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We're importing gasoline.

[Jack Fowler]

We're importing gasoline.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Can you believe this, Jack? Japan is importing oil, some of it from us. And then they're refining this special brew that only a few places in the.

[Jack Fowler]

World can do of California gas and sending it back here on tankers because.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We won't build new. We want, see Gavin and the left want it both ways. They want to have this super, super, super clean, hard to refine formula for gas. But they don't want to build the.

[Jack Fowler]

Refineries in sufficient quantity to do it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then when they start to regulate them and keep doing it adding on.

[Jack Fowler]

More and more cost and they want them to lose money because they're evil corporations and they're not going to do it anymore.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So they would take a, that's going.

[Jack Fowler]

To cost them a billion dollars to leave.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But and their way.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, they are they.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah. And I guess they, I guess fellow Californian and former energy secretary under Barack Obama was Dr. Chu, remember him? And he said he wanted to see.

[Jack Fowler]

Gasoline up to European levels. At that time there were $9.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I guess that's what Gavin's. When I was reading about this this week, I said to myself, and I.

[Jack Fowler]

Wrote a column about this about a.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Year ago, but if I wanted to.

[Jack Fowler]

Destroy California, it would be very hard to do. It has $11 trillion in market capitalization in Silicon Valley.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It had wonderful governors, Pat Brown Sr.

[Jack Fowler]

Ronald Reagan, George Dick Mason, Pete Wilson. Even the first term of Schwarzenegger wasn't bad.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It had the best university system, JCS.

[Jack Fowler]

23 state universities, nine UC campuses.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It had two of the top five.

[Jack Fowler]

Universities in the world, rated Stanford and Caltech. It had private universities that were just nearly as good, USC.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And it had the richest farming economy.

[Jack Fowler]

Of the 50 states, as well as a big banking and energy sector. It was when I was growing up self sufficient in oil and natural gas and it had the third or fourth largest timber industry of all the 50 states. So if I want, it would be very hard to destroy that. I would just say, how would I do it? I know what I'll do. I'll raise taxes to 13.3%. I'll raise the highest sales tax about 8%. And then they can add on at the local level to get it up to 12. I'll have the highest gas taxes. I'll have the highest.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'll have the highest gas prices because of my blends. And then I will just call the.

[Jack Fowler]

Middle class white, racist, racist, racist, racist, racist.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'll gerrymander the state, but I'll call.

[Jack Fowler]

It under a new nonpartisan way of doing it. And I will see if I can get rid of these 10 million conservative voters and drive them out.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'll make fun of them. I will. Out.

[Jack Fowler]

I'll do out.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Regulate their businesses, get them out.

[Jack Fowler]

And then I'll open the borders and.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Bring in 10 million people across the southern border. And I will.

[Jack Fowler]

My biggest goal is to make sure that I price electricity so high that a quarter of the people cannot pay their bills. That way I'll get to stick it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

To the people who have money and use a lot. And I can give welfare to the people who can't afford their bills and they'll be indebted to me.

[Jack Fowler]

And then I'll make sure that 40% of all health care in California is state supplied medi cal welfare. And I want to make sure that half of all the births, half of all the births are on welfare.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And now that I think of it, I want to bring in so many people that one, almost a third of.

[Jack Fowler]

The state were not born in the United States. But I don't Want any civic education? Why would I contaminate their mind with melting pot? Civic education and propaganda. They have to be told how awful, not how good the United States was.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And you know what?

[Jack Fowler]

I just thought up another thing, Jack. Three more things. I'll take seven billion bucks that all these stupid people want to do and build reservoirs so in wet years they have plenty of water for agriculture, consumers, hydroelectric.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And I'll blow them up.

[Jack Fowler]

I'll use it to blow my. Blow four dams up and maybe I'll stop.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'll blow another one up at the Eel.

[Jack Fowler]

And then we have some. The 99, I forgot. It's the most dangerous highway in the United States. It hasn't been updated since its creation. It's only four lanes in many places. I won't. I will never make it six lanes.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'll never make 101.

[Jack Fowler]

Six lanes.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'll never make i5.

[Jack Fowler]

But I've got a high speed rail project I'm going to sink. $20 billion will go nowhere.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But it means that nobody gets to.

[Jack Fowler]

Have a nice freeway. I'll do that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Is there anything I can do just to irritate people?

[Jack Fowler]

Yes.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I will give 17,000 dry.

[Jack Fowler]

Oh, 17,000. I think it's more like 60, but I'll say 17,000. Licenses to people to drive very dangerous trucks.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

20 tons. And they don't have to know English. They don't.

[Jack Fowler]

They can take 10 times to pass the test with a wink and nod. And they don't have to be American.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Citizens and they don't have to be legal immigrants. I think I can all do that.

[Jack Fowler]

And then I'll get California's test scores down to 45th in the country. I think I did it. I'm Gavin Newsom. I'm Jerry Brown. I'm Nancy Pelosi. I'm Dianne Feinstein. I'm Barbara Boxer. I'm Kamala Harris. That's what we did. We're all from the Bay Area.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you. It's hard to do, but they did it.

[Podcast Host]

Victor, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, one last California related story. And that's Gavin Newsom versus Mr. Musk, Elon Musk. And we'll do that when we come back from these final important messages.

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[Podcast Host]

We're back with Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words recording on Monday the 15th of December this episode up on the 18th we're wishing our friends, our brothers and sisters in Abraham, our Jewish friends happy Hanukkah despite what you're you're enduring, especially those in Australia and but everywhere river to the Sea seems to be creeping into all aspects and all communities around the world. The Global Intifada is indeed global, but do try to have a happy one and early Merry Christmas to our friends, brothers and sisters in in Christ. So here's a headline. Victor Musk slams Gov. Newsom says transgenderism is evil woke mind virus SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk rebuked Newsom's deputies for claiming he is hated by his son, whom they describe as a transgender daughter. Quote I assume you're referring to my son Xavier, who has a tragic mental illness caused by the evil woke mind virus you push on vulnerable children, musk wrote in a post on X. I love Xavier very much and hope he recovers. My daughters are as Azure, Exa, who goes by Y and Arcadia, and they do indeed love me very much. End quote. Musk's post came in response to a post from Newsom's press office. Blah, blah, blah. I'm glad to see Elon Musk. I'm glad to see just about everything he does, but sticking it in in Gavin Newsom's eye, especially on this issue.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, I don't know what Gavin's whole point is, but.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He has a a rapid response team and he is doing his best so that when Trump lets out something that's crass or crude, his idea is to copy it and outdo it. And he's got these young something people.

[Jack Fowler]

Who'Ve never really been out in the real world and they so they attack people's children. They use all sorts of horrible words. We were told he wants to hit.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Trump in the mouth.

[Jack Fowler]

He wants to beat up his supporters.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

All this stuff and then he thinks.

[Jack Fowler]

And then you know with his little herky jerky attitude when he sees people and he it's not working. He has no record. There's no record here. It's record of destruction. I feel like he did to us what Scipio Malianus did to Carthage in.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The third Carthaginian war. I do people forget that Scipio didn't.

[Jack Fowler]

Say I'm going to destroy your city city. He said his predecessors, the generals that he replaced said if you just disarm yourself then we'll let you live. And they disarm themselves and then we know what happened.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So they never announced their intentions and.

[Jack Fowler]

So you know he does.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I don't quite understand when he does.

[Jack Fowler]

All these deleterious things on energy and timber and farming and water and tax taxes and health care and destroys the.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

State and then he get. He says he's going to give 500 during COVID 500 million to illegal aliens or he's going to give all this land to indigenous people or this water or he's going to have a reparations for. So I guess he thinks California was.

[Jack Fowler]

A slave state which it wasn't and.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That'S going to appeal to everybody but.

[Jack Fowler]

It'S not and it's just he always.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Go he always does these terrible things of that really matter and substance food, housing, education, transportation, fuel, power and then he does these token things that don't.

[Jack Fowler]

But they're so they're also aimed at kind of that left wing liberal and.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Somebody'S going to say well Victor why.

[Jack Fowler]

Don'T you get to the quick?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The quick is that from La Jolla to Berkeley along a Coast there are 10 to 15 million upper class mostly.

[Jack Fowler]

White vestigial population who are very very liberal and they have so much money they're never subject to the consequences of their ideology and they want to feel good because they don't have to worry about money so they view the rest of the state as a lab rat that to be experimented on. And that's true.

[Podcast Host]

Victor has seems like his student oversees Starmer the prime minister of England. The things you just recited about how do I destroy the state? I have to. I'll read part of this. This is a post from on X from James Melville who in your kind of sarcastic tone there wrote let's ban new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea but spaff away 40 billion buying north Sea oil and gas from Norway. Let's buy coking coal shipments worth £7.2 million from Japan but ban UK coal mining. Let's, let's give £500 million this year alone to wind power companies not to generate power from their wind turbines.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I saw that. And that's very instructive because that's exactly right, Jack. That's what Newsom does. It's not just the initial sin transgression that he stops oil production or timber production or power production, but he doesn't then have the courage to go to the people and say we're not going to pump any oil so you're going.

[Jack Fowler]

To have to cut back.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We're not going to pump any, we're not going to build any homes because.

[Jack Fowler]

I'm not going to let you cut trees in California. Ah, we're going to have to shut off your electricity at seven at night because we're not going to import any electricity fueled by coal from Arizona or Utah. But it's just the opposite. He says to people, I'm going to.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Play a little game with you. Your lifestyle will be on untouched ostensibly.

[Jack Fowler]

But it's going to cost a lot more. So you're all going to get a little poor, especially you middle class people.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But you're going to be able to.

[Jack Fowler]

Say not in my name.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We didn't pump oil in California because.

[Jack Fowler]

You will just import the gas or the oil and refine it here or how the Japanese refine it. We don't cut trees in California but you're going to have a lumber, you know, two by all the two by sixes you need. We're going to import it from Alaska and Canada. We don't burn coal but we're going to let other people do it. That's their attitude and they never say.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

To themselves well why don't we cut the planet?

[Jack Fowler]

We always believed it was Spaceship Earth, one planet.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Can't we cut lumber more ecologically sound than the Canadians?

[Jack Fowler]

Can't we pump oil in Bakersfield or offshore Santa Barbara in the safer then the Venezuelans or the Saudis or the Kuwaitis do it. Can't we burn coal just as well as, or even cleaner than other states do? But he doesn't do that. He's like a little kid, a little adolescent that wants this and this and then doesn't want to pay for it or doesn't want to. And so that's what's so troubling everybody, what's driving people in California crazy. They all know the problems. They all know the problems, they all know the solutions. Even the Democrats know this. But they can't do it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Libby, in his introduction to the History.

[Jack Fowler]

Of Rome said, we are all aware of the problems and we all are aware of the medicine. And the medicine is worse than the disease, basically. And that's our problem in this country. We all know what we have to do, but we say to ourselves, just.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Getting there, we all know we cannot.

[Jack Fowler]

Borrow $37 trillion anymore. It's too much. We have to stop it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We have to pay down that debt.

[Jack Fowler]

But, gosh, look what happened to Doge. Can we do this? Can you imagine all the people gonna call us racist, sexist, transphobes, homophobes, cruel, mean Nazis, fascist? We all know that we have 12 million illegal aliens and at least a half a million more criminals. We gotta find them before they kill or maim anymore, man. Do you know how many ICE protesters there would be if you did that? The medicine is worse than the disease.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It isn't, but that's what people feel. I'm getting kind of depressed. I really am. Because the only solution that you see right now is Trump, because he is addressing more oil, more natural gas, more. They just found a huge rare earth mine.

[Jack Fowler]

Jack, I think you in Utah. It's vital. That would never be developed under anybody but Trump.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He's got this. The space program is going gangbusters. AI, robotics, genetic and engineering.

[Jack Fowler]

It's all being encouraged.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We are not giving away $80 billion.

[Jack Fowler]

In the misadventure in Kabul. We're trying to restrain or deterrent. It's all going good, but.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But not if you continue to throw.

[Jack Fowler]

It all away with tweet, with silly tweets, stupid tweets. It doesn't make any sense.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, there'd be good things to tweet about, like, hey, we found 62,000 kids that Biden had let disappear.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They need to get everybody, as I.

[Jack Fowler]

Said that three, I think, two, two weeks ago. Get everybody in that cabinet together in a room, and no reporters, no speeches, nothing. Just close the door and say, look.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We'Re in the 11th hour.

[Jack Fowler]

We've got 12, less than 12 months for the midterms. If we lose the midterms, we're all going to be drawn up by these crazy people and subpoenaed, and it's going to cost each of us a million dollars in legal fees because they're going to go after all of us to bankrupt us, they're going to impeach the president, and we're not going to have any time or power to continue these initiatives. So let's get cracking, everybody.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Look for things that will improve the.

[Jack Fowler]

Economy and look at ways of trying to tell the people what you're doing. No tweets about any other thing, Nothing. See what happens.

[Podcast Host]

No tweetio. Well, Victor, you've been terrific as ever. Appreciate all the wisdom you you shared today. And as ever, as we always do, the end of the podcast, we try to read some of the comments that thousands we get every week now through YouTube, Apple, your website rumble. Here are two one is from Katherine Vincent, 7769, who writes, listening to BDH talk about World War II aircraft was like having my father sitting beside me talking about those same planes that he flew during and after World War II. Thank you. More than any other World War II historian, Hansen makes the war come alive to those who didn't live through it. His observations and insight never fail to reveal different aspects of the war to me, and I've spent many years immersed in World War II history. He's a gift.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

True.

[Podcast Host]

And then one more Paul Zurobsky, 2659, who writes, Let us all pray for Mr. Hansen to have a successful procedure, speedy recovery, and many more years.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, and I'm as I'm speaking.

[Jack Fowler]

I will find the results out today.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But not yet. Not yet.

[Podcast Host]

All right, Victor.

[Jack Fowler]

Not today.

[Podcast Host]

Eventually, someday for all of us. But not no now. Okay. Well, thanks, Victor. Thanks all who have watched and listened. Hey, from as for me, sign up civil go to civilthoughts.com sign up for simple Thoughts, the free weekly email newsletter I write comes out every Friday.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

14 Everybody say a prayer for the Reiner family.

[Jack Fowler]

I feel really terrible about that. Just.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Just senseless. Oh, yeah.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you everybody, for watching.

[Podcast Host]

God bless.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own [e-mail] and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.