← Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: The COVID Narrative Officially Collapsed
01:20:49
A CIA whistleblower, James Erdman III, alleges that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the architect behind many of the notorious, draconian public health policies, “influenced” the U.S. intelligence community’s examination of the COVID-19 origins probe, pushing analysts away from lab-leak theories—what else did they lie about, asks Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”
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- [00:00]
Jack Fowler
So, Victor, Donald Trump back from China.
- [00:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
I think it was good. He didn't make any comprehensive deals or concessions. And I thought Xi was really provocative when he said the Thucydides trout the
- [00:13]
Jack Fowler
enemy and my enemy is my friend. So how these bedmates become bedmates, I
- [00:19]
Victor Davis Hanson
guess Chuck Schumer and people all on the left that are Jewish feel that they're not going to come after them, but they will. In your little hall, they had like a little tiny room.
- [00:30]
Jack Fowler
Did you have a golden toilet? Victor?
- [00:32]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, yeah, it was like 10ft by 10ft for little cot and there were, I don't know, two, 300 of them. And you could see little flashes of gold trim.
- [00:41]
Jack Fowler
Should Iran be revert to, I don't know, democracy, or at least not, well,
- [00:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
we know what, yeah, we know. What doesn't work is the nation building. Afghanistan maybe it kind of worked in Iraq, but it was a terrible price to pay.
- [01:04]
Jack Fowler
Foreign. Hello, ladies and hello, gentlemen, and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in His own Words. We're recording on Sunday, May 17, 2026. This particular episode will be up on Tuesday, May 19th. I'm Jack Fowler. I'm the host. I'm the man that gets to ask Victor the questions I believe you would ask him. We are carried by the Daily Signal Network. Our great friends there, Rob, Louie and Victor is the Martin and Eli Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marcia Bussky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. His website, the Blade of Perseus, is VictorHanson.com, very subscriber worthy. You should be subscribing. I'll tell you why later in this episode and his forthcoming book out in August or September, you can get it now is Counter Revolution, the Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement. Victor, a ton of things to talk. What I'm always worried about as we talk on a given day and then two days later or three days later it's published. And so much can happen in the intervening period. But we've got a ton of things to talk about and one of them is your take on what Donald Trump should be doing from this point now that he's back from China. We have the Anthony Fauci whistleblower story. Gavin Newsom's trying to devise some backup plan in case there are two Republicans in the California gubernatorial primary. Jimmy Lai, Bill Kristol's a Democrat. Does anyone care? It's still, it's still worth getting.
- [02:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
He said he was for the party of small government, the Democrat, I think
- [02:53]
Jack Fowler
he's for the party of small people, which is.
- [02:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
I think you knew him better than I did, Jack.
- [03:00]
Jack Fowler
Probably, Victor. And the ego is in reverse proportion to the stature. All that said, we will get your take on so many things when we come back from these initial important messages. As an advocate of truth, you know that women shouldn't have to share locker rooms with men, women shouldn't have to compete against male athletes, and they shouldn't be punished for speaking the truth. But across America, that's exactly what's happening. Men are being allowed to compete in women's sports, robbing girls of scholarships, medals, titles and safety. Now, the US Supreme Court has heard two cases, West Virginia versus PBJ and Little B. Hickoks that happened on January 13th that could decide the future of women's sports nationwide. This could be a watershed moment in the fight to protect biological reality and fairness. Alliance Defending Freedom needs your voice today. Visit joinadf.com hanson or text Hanson to 83848 to add your name to their declaration and side with truth and fairness. That's join ADF.com Hanson or text Hanson to 83848 what starts in women's sports spreads to schools, medicine and parental rights. This is our moment to push back, stand with Alliance Defending Freedom Today. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. By the way, four times a week we do this podcast and then four times a week Victor does Victor Davis Hansen in a few words at the Daily Signal. And you should check that out. That's free, just like this. So, Victor, Donald Trump back from China. So much ahead now. Midterm elections are ahead, the war with Iran. So much is is happening. There's so much to get in the way of continued success. Maybe there's some opportunities too. What's your take on what the president should be doing at this point?
- [05:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
I think it was good. He, he didn't make any comprehensive deals or concessions. And I thought Chi was really provocative when he said the Thucydides trap and that referred to Graham Allison, the Harvard political scientist. And I have a column coming out Thursday on it. But he Chi basically said the thesis from Thucydides Athens Sparta rivalry where Sparta preempted in 431 to start the Peloponnesian War because they were fear of athen power would be too dominant. I'm going to address that. That's not really true because there's a lot of places in the text where he says they were so innately different that they had these existential Differences, not just fear of Athens, but nonetheless he's saying that he is the ascendant power. It's like Athens. And he hopes that the United States, like Sparta, won't react and invade or attack because it's inevitable he's going to rise. I would remind him that this is not new, that we were told in the salons of New York that Fascism in 1930s Italy and Germany was the wave of the future. And Charles Lindbergh turned the country and said there's no way we can catch up with the Luftwaffe. We know how that ended. And we were told after this World War II, the Soviet Union was going to bury us. They had swept over all the continent. We know how that ended. Then we were told Japan Incorporated had bought all of our companies. Pebble beach, golf course, Rockefeller center near you, Jack. And we know how that ended. And then we were told the EU was a model of 450 million juggernaut who was going to overtake our GDP. We know how that ended. So all these ascendant powers that challenged us, with the exception of Germany and Japan, we didn't have to go to war against. We didn't preempt them. They started the hostilities and they all lost both our allies and our neutrals and our belligerents. So I think China fits that pattern. They're behind us in so many things, from fertility to oil production, get natural gas production to food. They import 30% of their food. Their companies are not even among the top 10. Maybe one is. Eight of them are American. I could go on forever. So that's. It started out what I'm trying to say, Jack. It was provocative from Xi. And then people criticized Donald Trump because he reportedly did not give a negative or a positive when he was asked directly what would they do if they attacked Taiwan. But that's U.S. policy. Gordon Chang, for years has been accentuating that. It's strategic ambiguity. We don't have to tell him what we're going to do. We want to make him guess. But no nuclear power in the world with 600 nuclear weapons is going to challenge one with 6,000. It's just not going to happen. No power with three carrier groups with 15 years experience with carrier operations is going to attack a power with 11 carrier groups with 100 years of experience. Experience. It's not going to happen. So I think the deal, what I'm trying to do, it was just pragmatic. And the only two issues really that I can fathom from the coverage and the two I listened to the too long Brett Baer and Sean Hannity's interview with Trump. And I tried to distill it down to just two issues. One is, will China. Sell Iran arms, all kinds of arms, but mostly missile defense. I don't know whether shoulder, you know, Sam, type of shoulder. We had some problems with them, I suppose, or the more sophisticated platform. And will they help opening the strait? I don't think they will. They may say they will. They lie all the time. They said they were going to help on fentanyl and not send it to Mexico, and they never stopped that. And then they want us to let some Chinese tankers leave with oil. And I think Trump said he let one already, so that's about all we can expect. It's going to leak a little bit. So China, which imports 65 to 70% of its. I think they. Jack, I think they import 10 million barrels a day, and they've lost Venezuela and Russia has been down. So, anyway, that's what I think. That was pretty good. I turned on msnbc. It was quite amazing. Cnn. Did you ever know Nicole Wallace?
- [10:07]
Jack Fowler
No. I mean, of course I know who. I may have seen her at a party or two, but.
- [10:11]
Victor Davis Hanson
No, I think she was the one that was in charge of Sarah Palin, and she really kind of sabotaged her, didn't she? Yeah, yeah. She's not a very sympathetic character. But she was on there attacking Trump from the right. Said he's humiliated, he's given everything away. He's done all this. And I don't know what to say about that. It's not like he let a Chinese balloon go across the United States. It's not like Marco Rubio was in Anchorage, Alaska, when the Chinese diplomats told me he was an idiot and he just took it. It's not like there was. I don't know, there's mysterious farmland being bought all up for the first time under Biden, right next to military bases. So, anyway, that's what's going on. I think the other thing, real quickly, Jack, is that I know that I've said we're running out of time. Seven months, six months. But it's. It's, you know, it started on February 28th, so you had all of March and April, now we're into May. So you're 75, 80 days. I know that now, the majority of those days have not been war. People forget that we were only at war for 42, 41 days. It's been merchandising, haggling. And you can't deal with these people because these radical Islamists don't tell the truth and what they say means nothing. And even if it did mean something, we don't know who is in charge of these four entities that claim they were.
- [11:45]
Jack Fowler
Why do we even negotiate that?
- [11:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't know. I think we're out of patience and I think will tell Trump this week or next. Look, you can still, because of the hikem, Jeffries put his party's proverbial head in a noose by bragging that they were going to win the redistricting and that just antagonized people. The egregious example of California and Virginia. So you're going to see all these Republicans redistrict and they have more and they're going to get 10 to 12 seats and then they're going to race to get rid of the racial gerrymanding. They're already doing it. They're going to get another four and we're going to get down to maybe 10 seats. They're going to be contested and they have a bill. They're going to outspend the Democrats and all they need is three months, maybe four months. So we need to wrap this up in two or three weeks. And then those 250 tankers with 300 million barrels of oil on the ocean and Russia's output is increasing. Venezuela's ours is there's going to be. And then the UAE has left. OPEC is going to pump another million barrels. OPEC is going to dissolve and you're going to see a crash. But whether that crash will be in time to drop gas down to $2 a gallon, I don't know. But there's a chance it could. And the economy is sound. So what I'm getting at, the pressures are building and the Iranians think that the Trump won't do anything because he's scared of the midterm. I think it's just the opposite. He's sick of them and they're running out of time and he will do something and it will be overwhelming. And then the $64,000 question is, how many missiles and drones did they hide in caches all over the country? It's a huge country, one and a half times the size of Texas. Where are all those? And are they going to be able to take out the oil refineries of the Gulf? That's it. And I think the Israelis, I have no inside knowledge, but just from reading extensively, I think the Israelis have a list and they're going to go down and they're going to get all the Revolutionary Islamic Guard, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and they're going to go after the theocrats and then we're going to take out as much of their dual use targets as we can and try to leave the oil infrastructure, but maybe not the loading and docking, but the pipelines and the storage tanks intact.
- [14:21]
Jack Fowler
I know I'm springing this on you, but what do you think about the Shah, the son of the Shah, I don't know if he is still considered shah like some of these French royalty, even though France hasn't had a king for 100 years. What do you think about his role? Should Iran be revert to, I don't know, democracy, or at least not away from theocracy?
- [14:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, we know what doesn't work is the nation building. Afghanistan maybe it kind of worked in Iraq, but it was a terrible price to pay the Maduro strongman. Get rid of the strongman and the people who are fanatics and then tell the people who were his supporters, you can stay in power but you got to do it 1, 2, 3 or we're going to take you out too and you're going to transition at some point to free elections. That's a better model. So if you could sit the shot down and say we will help you get back if the people want you, but you're going to have a timeline, all we want from you is a restoration of the economy and order and then you can oversee like kind of Juan Carlos did in Spain with the end of the Franco regime. That's your task and you'll go down in history as Juan Carlos, a great man, but don't get delusions of grandeur, that's all. And think you're going to rule Iran without an election at some point. But it would be suicidal to go in there and take out all these people and then tell everybody that we're going to send John Kerry over there and you know, Nicholas Kristoff so that they can teach everybody about left wing version of their, you know, democracy. It's not going to happen.
- [16:11]
Jack Fowler
Nicholas Kristoff I know we talked about it and it was so reprehensible, beyond reprehensible what he did.
- [16:18]
Victor Davis Hanson
But he's such a great moralist and ethicist. He lives on a farm in Oregon, although he was disqualified. You remember he ran for governor of Oregon in 2002 and the left wing attorney general disqualified him. He got very angry and said it was political because he was never on his farm. It was just a joke. He was living of course near you on the east Coast. Connecticut, probably, or somewhere in New York. So he's an activist and it's physically impossible. Then he put his head, to use that metaphor again, in a noose when he said that he had consulted three scientific medical articles that showed that animals were able to have sexual intercourse, I.e. canines, with humans. But he didn't answer the question. He didn't allege that. He didn't say, well, there's sick people out there that engage in bestiality and that's why bestiality is on the books as a crime in many states. No, he didn't say that. He said that dogs could be trained on command to forcibly rape males and that's impossible. And there's no medical literature that supports that allegation. He made it up. It came from Hamas sources, Euromed. I think they're going to be quiet about it. Their attitude now is just to stonewall, don't talk about it and put him on. I, I thought he retired anyway, but I brought him back for that huge article. And the whole thing was a setup, as everybody said, because the next day or two, the Israelis came out with a 12,000 were documented, you know, photographs, the cameras, right, from the Hamas murders and tortures and sick people. And nobody was talking about that. So Kristof, you know, if his purpose was to help Hamas out, it worked. And I think it was. That's another topic. But boy, the Democratic party has got this weird. I don't know how they did it. Marriage weld meld between left wing politics DEI and this right wing Islamicism that doesn't allow any freedom of speech, no equity for women, persecutes homosexuals. And that group has now become married to the left wing Democratic. It's really a democratic socialist. It's really a socialist Islamic party.
- [18:47]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well, you know, the enemy and my enemy is my friend. So how these bedmates become bedmates, I
- [18:56]
Victor Davis Hanson
guess Chuck Schumer and people all on the left that are Jewish feel that they're not going to come after them, but they will, they will. It won't do any good. Bill Maher had a really good take on that when he, he had kind of. I couldn't believe it. You know, I had been on his show once and it was a disaster. He just, they said they weren't going to do this and then they would just, you know, it was attack. They said I was Chaney's guru and they had Gandalf there. Ian McClellan. It was just a, it was a hate fest. And I said to the producer you lied. And I'm never going to go back up there. I've never been back there. I never go on there. But I'm going to give him credit. He gave a good talk for eight or nine years.
- [19:37]
Jack Fowler
Did you see who was on with him? David French, but we won't talk about Bill.
- [19:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
Was David French on?
- [19:45]
Jack Fowler
Oh, yeah. They cut away to one of the other panelists and it was him. And I'm like, oh, I winced there for a second.
- [19:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
I was on a panel, you remember, on one of your cruises. Was it a week after the election of 2016? Yes, and I was on a panel. And was there anybody else who was delighted that Hillary lost and Trump won, besides me? Me, You. But was there any of the writers?
- [20:12]
Jack Fowler
No, I doubt it. Yeah, I doubt it.
- [20:15]
Victor Davis Hanson
So, you know, I was on that panel. There were eight or nine of them, and they were attacking me and all this doom and gloom and all this. And so I just asked her permission, as I remember, if I could get off at Key west and I felt like I was free. I would rather get a 500 gallon tank of parathion and, I don't know, defend diomethoate and without a respirator, which I did for years, and go spray all day, then stay one more minute on that panel because it was toxic.
- [20:48]
Jack Fowler
Okay.
- [20:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
Anyway.
- [20:50]
Jack Fowler
All right, hey, before we go to a spot, I'm going to spring something else. Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, the incumbent Republican, got knocked out this weekend in the primary.
- [21:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
He came in third. He came in third? Yeah. I mean, he voted to impeach Trump. There was no grounds to do that. He got swept away. He's a nice fellow. I think he voted 70% of the time for the MAGA agenda. But on the key issues like the SAVE act and things, correct me if I'm wrong, he wasn't there. And in Louisiana, they can get a more conservative candidate that can win, whereas in Maine, he was basically a Susan Collins Republican. But unlike Susan Collins, she's boxed in. She has no choice. Even if she doesn't believe that she's a moderate Romney rhino. She would have to be anyway to get even close in that crazy state. And then she voted and she's more or less, she'll vote for the president, but he's a different case. He had no excuse. His constituencies were far more conservative than he was.
- [22:03]
Jack Fowler
No question. And same thing of a sort. I think in Indiana there were primaries.
- [22:09]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes. Six out of seven, I think.
- [22:12]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Guys who were against the redistricting there,
- [22:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
knocked out, you know, I Think what's happening, Jack, is there is a boiling up. I think all of the hate Trump and all of the demonstrators you see out there, I don't even think they vote. I really don't. I just think of the people who vote in an honest election where the ballots have not been mailed in early and they're warped, they're fed up. And they're not just. I mean, they're worried about the economy and gas. So am I. But they're just tired of the dei. They're tired of people like Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom on the TV line. They're tired of the crime. There's a whole Internet, YouTube, TikTok industry now of crime, crime, crime, crime. And they have one theme. I've been examining it just to see if I could write about it. I watched about two hours of it. I'd never done that before. Now I watch it. You know what the main theme is for America right now? It is some guy who's a bully who tries to throw somebody off into a train or he tries to ram his car and he gets the blank beat out of him by an outraged citizen. And that's some kind of vicarious experience that, that genre. Now they're just sick of it. And so they want order, they want tradition, they want values. And they're tired of the foul mouth, they're tired of the F word. They're tired of all that. And that doesn't help the Democrats.
- [23:52]
Jack Fowler
You've talked about this before. You play by the rules in your own where you live and the inspectors that come by. If you play by the rules, if you're a law abiding, your stones are going to get busted if you don't play by the rules. You can do whatever the hell you want and no one's going to touch you. And that's it is.
- [24:08]
Victor Davis Hanson
It is. I got a letter yesterday from the county of Fresno. This house has been on in my family since 1871. The house 6. My son was the sixth generation. His kids, if they want to live here, would be the seventh. I got a letter that said, this is to inform you that we're going to widen your road and we're going to take 35ft and we're going to come out and assess it. And they're going to take this busy road now, mostly because we've got the high speed rail down there and there's a truck every minute. I won't mention who's driving them at about 70 miles an hour. And the road's Being worn out, and they want to widen it. And I had spent. I had always done all my yard work myself until I was about 65, and then I got tired, and it was a big job. It was a kind of. I had a peach orchard out in front of my. So they came in, they took everything out, they leveled it, they put a sprinkler system, they put cypress trees, redwood trees, olive trees. It's beautiful. It's right in front of my house, and it's a barrier. So when somebody is intoxicated, which has happened about eight times in the last 30 years, and they go airborne on Sunday afternoons, they don't go into my yard. But my point is, they're going to destroy all of that, claim it, and then they're going to move the property line right up to my wall. To the wall? Yes, right to there. And I'd spent probably, I don't know, $40,000. I'd always. My entire life, I wanted a paved driveway. It's so dusty. I finally afforded it about 15 years ago. They're going to take out the paved driveway. They're going to bring everything right there. And there's no, excuse me, just your
- [25:58]
Jack Fowler
side of the road, not the other side.
- [25:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, because our side. The other side has power poles and cables and everything, and ours doesn't. And the other side has one in the area. They're going to do it. I think it's a mile and a half. They have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 houses, and we only have 1, 2, 3, four. So they're going to widen it, and there's no. I have to meet the assessor, and he's going to come out and that says you can buy your place if you want to sell. If you think it destroys your value, they'll probably give me. Oh, and the other thing is, I'm responsible. I beautified the road. It's beautiful. When you go by the house, it looks like a Roman villa because of the cypress and the redwood. It looks beautiful. But I am responsible now, after paying 30 or $40,000 to completely redo it, irrigation, everything, now I have to tear it all out, and I have to pay for it. That's California, and that's playing by the rules. And I can tell you that there'll be a lot of people I won't mention where, but they'll just say, I'm not going to do it. You do what you want, but I'm not going to pay. I can't pay. And they will come in and they will tear up their yard or whatever and they won't charge them.
- [27:14]
Jack Fowler
And that's why do they want to widen the. It's a wide road.
- [27:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
It is a wide road but it's not that wide when they do it for two reasons. From the 99 Freeway eastward, it's a four lane road. Now it's the main. And they want to continue that for an R section. I don't know why but I think it's less habited. So there's a. In between my two lane road and the four lane freeway which is the same Mountain View Avenue, there's an area they're not going to wide it and I think that's because it's heavily populated. But I tell you, I can tell you what the demand is or what if I go out to get the mailbox. I would say every two minutes a 20 ton truck goes by at 65 miles an hour to 70. And they pass each other too. They pass cars and they're completely. It's. And the, the pavement has been wrecked and there's a big new trucking company down the road and this went on for maybe four or five years to supply the high speed rail overpass about four miles away. They had to, you know, gravel and all that. But gosh, you have no. That's playing by the rules and I'll play by the rules. I'll. I'll go and hire somebody and they'll have to take out all the irrigation system. There's old pipelines under there. They're going to have to take out. These redwood trees are huge. They're going to have to take out the stumps and it's going to be a mess. And then I'm going to have a 20 ton truck going 75 miles an hour, 20 miles over the speed limit, which they will never. I have never seen one of the truckers get a ticket. Never. Not once. Not one time.
- [29:04]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [29:04]
Victor Davis Hanson
And that truck will be, I don't know, 10ft from my.
- [29:08]
Jack Fowler
Be at your breakfast table.
- [29:10]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, yeah. So that the value of the property will be worthless. It really will. Unless I can build it. I have a six foot wall. I'll have to build it three feet higher or something. But the whole idea with the cypress was to protect the tree and that. You know, I bought them, they're very expensive and I bought them at I don't know, seven feet and they're like 30. They're huge. And I did that because on that side of the road I've had at least three people go Airborne and I mean, you know, intoxicated drivers weaving and they hit the shoulder and they go into my property. They tear up almond trees, they've torn up vineyard trees. They've torn up everything. And not once, not once has a California Highway Patrol sighted any of them. Not once have they asked them to pay. And the one time I got angry, I actually took a tractor and I went out and got the wrecked car. And every single time the driver left, they were all illegal. He left the scene of the accident not hurt, apparently. And every time I can think, except one, there was alcohol in the car that was abandoned. And I went out and I dragged the car with a chain from a tractor. And then I put it around the axle and I chained it and locked it to a big tree. And then I saw. I just waited there the next day. And I saw about five people sneak in, bending down below the trees, and they were trying to get it. And you know what they did? They called 911. And sure enough, when I called them, when they had. We were swatted or anything like that, they don't come. I've had people break in, trying to break in my house. I called the sheriff. It was an hour. So anyway, in a nanosecond, here came the highway patrol. And I thought they were going to arrest them. And I said, they have done five to $10,000 of damage to this vineyard. They have torn out 40 vines three rows in. And the person is. He left the scene of the accident. And you can see I haven't touched the car. There's about six pack of Coors bottles in here. This is about 15 years ago, 20. And he said, you. I'm not going to discuss that. You unlock that right now. I'm going to cite you. I said, why? He abandoned his car after he did damage to my property. He owes me 20 or $30,000. I've got to replant all these vineyards that are not going to be in production for, I don't know, four years. And it's going to be a lot of work. He said, I don't care. We're going to take the car and we're going to go put it and impound it. And then I said, what, he's going to come and pick it up? I said, what is he going to pay? He said, he'll pay $50 tow fee. I said, are you going to cite him? He said, I wasn't here when he did it. I said, is there a job? Is there? If I get in a car and I swerve all over the road and you see it, would you cite me?
- [32:13]
Jack Fowler
He said, yes.
- [32:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
I said, if I went over this out of control and I hit a property, wouldn't that be reckless driving? He said, I don't know the circumstances. That's why he said he could have fallen asleep. I said, isn't that still, whatever the cause, it was a felony what he did. And that's what they did. Wow. And that's what, that's why, you know, that's why people. That's part of a long rant about why people are very angry because they always go after the misdemeanor from the law abiding citizen because they either cannot or will not deal with a felony. And you can see that with this. Really. I talked to him for a half an hour and the guy really was on that topic. Spencer Pratt in la and all of those ads he's doing are these people go after law abiding citizens, they unleash the homeless on them, they unleash illegal aliens on them, they unleash everybody. And if the law abiding citizen reacts, then he's the racist evil. Yeah, he had a great commercial when now they're accusing him of not staying every night in his trailer. And he said, I'm homeless, I have no home, my children have no home. What does it matter whether I stay one night in the trailer and then I want to take a shower? There is no water. You know what I mean? You haven't restored the water. You haven't done anything. You won't let me rebuild. And they were going after him for that, Karen Bass and her flock. So I think people are really getting angry about it. I saw it one time before with Pop. Three strikes and you're out. And that was before the demography changed with everybody left California but a local radio host, I think you might know him, Ray Appleton. And he's really good. And he single handedly galvanized the entire Central Valley. The turnout for that three strikes and then by court decision, they've watered it down to nothing, but it really stopped the crime.
- [34:16]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, there's some international anger we should talk about also. And Fauci. But first, Victor, to our viewers and our listeners in the last, if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that the systems we rely on can fail. And when they do, we're on our own. And that's why we want to tell you about my Patriot Supply, America's original patriotic preparedness company. They help over 3 million American families get prepared. Since 2008 with more than 90,000 five star reviews. And right now they've got a special offer that you really need to check out. When you get their flagship solar backup generator, the ultra powerful Grid Dr. 3300, you will also get over $1,000 worth of survival essentials absolutely free. Four weeks of emergency food, water, filtration and much more, all free. It's in stock and ready to ship right now. But with everything going on right now, there's no telling how long it'll be available. So go to preparewithvdh.com right now to see everything you can get for free. Don't wait until it's too late. Get your complete preparedness set up today at preparewithvdh.com that's preparewith with vdh.com and we thank the good people from my Patriot Supply for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, we want to get your take on Anthony Fauci and the whistleblower, but just thought to mention that yesterday in England you talk about one person being able to galvanize and Tommy Robinson who was a middle class bloke but he's got a mind and an opinion and he speaks up and he was put in jail for that and he's gotten out of jail since. But he organized a rally. I think it was over a million fed up were done were sick and tired Brits. In London, there was a counter rally. Starmer, Keir Starmer, the prime minister blocked several journalists from coming into the country. Ezra Levant, who I think, I don't know if you know him at all. He's a Canadian journalist. Yeah, they were they, if they were troublemakers, if they were conservatives, the government of Britain was not going to the, the place where free speech was supposedly bored is not going to let you come in here. I know Glenn Beck went and, and spoke but it was remarkable and people just had it, had it, had it. And I think it's very parallel to the, the fed upness up in this.
- [36:57]
Victor Davis Hanson
Got really angry when I read that. I got really angry because I don't want to beat a dead horse. I had just done an interview with Piers Morgan that was really unprofessional and he brought in this crazy radical professor and then they both ran it. And I would I say why are British subjects here in the United States involving themselves in controversial politics? Of course I wouldn't. And there's thousands of Brits that are in commentary and punditry and influence and we don't ever say, you know, you're on A visa. You can't engage in political discourse, but they do. And I think Trump has a. He should really extend the tariff idea of reciprocity to everything. And he should. I think he should have told Chi, you can have as many students here as we do in China. You can have as much farmland here as we buy in China. They can be as close to a base here as we are in China. You can tell the Canadians the same thing. We're going to spend 4% GDP on defense of North America. You spend 4%, you have a 52 billion surplus with us for the next year, we're going to have a 52% billion with you and see what happens. And I think we should say the same thing with the British people. If you're going to censor people from America coming in there and they can't comment on your political discourse, then we're going to do the same thing. I think it would end very quickly. The only thing I couldn't understand was all of the polls show that labor is coming in third now, behind reform and behind Conservatives and then Labor. And then within that unpopularity, Stormer is even more unpopular than the labor party, like 8%, 10%. So here you have this populist pushback against the grooming, the rape, the pedophilia, often disproportionately conducted by Pakistani immigrants, many of them there illegally. And you have 6 to 15% of. In London, I think it's 30 or 40% of people who don't want to assimilate, acculturate, and integrate into the British body politic and tradition. Okay. But the vast majorities of Brits don't want that. So here you're in a popular system of consensual government. Why? I don't know why Conservative. Why is it only the Reform Party? You would think that Stormer would be. He would like Bill Clinton. He'd latch onto that. You know what I mean? But he's defending this minority of a minority of a minority unpopular position, and it's losing. He's going to destroy that. He's almost destroyed the Labor Party, and people are going to take power and it's going to be. I think Farage is going to win, I really do, in the next election. And if he does, there's going to be all. Hell is. If I can use that term, not in a, you know, profane sense. It's. It's all going to break loose and. Because people are. Are sick of it.
- [40:21]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. But also on top of also, Victor, the amount of People who are imprisoned in England now for a bad tweet, whatever bad means a normal tweet we see here. So you're silently praying near an abortion clinic and you're arrested for that. You're carrying the St. George flag, and you are arrested for that because it's going to upset. Then you take these small towns that have been over overnight, their hotels are, you know, everyone's thrown out. And. And you've got 137, you know, illegal immigrants living there.
- [41:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
And especially you have to put that in the context of all the Western nations, the one nation that really privileged. Protecting children, protecting animals, treating animals kindly, protecting manners. I was driving once in Britain on a bus, and I saw a guy pull out in front of the other one, and I thought, man, in America that would lead to a fight. Or poor guy. And they both. One guy pulled out and then he went over and he kind of. My window was down. He apologized. The other guy said, apologies accepted. I should have been anticipating you. And they shook hands and they got back in their car.
- [41:45]
Jack Fowler
Pip pip chitty O.
- [41:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
And that's what we. We assume, especially rural Britain. I mean, they can be gruff in rural Britain, but it's a very kind, tolerant, traditional society. So that for it to go from that pole to the exact opposite of just blatant crime and chaos and cultural depravity, I don't see how they can not object to it.
- [42:14]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [42:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
A lot of it was class, too. I saw some of the clips we keep forgetting. They do have this problem with class. So Tommy Robinson's accent, the way they dressed, and the people, they. The left is the upper class as it is in America, and they look down at that. That's one reason I think they really don't like Trump among many, that he has gold, kind of like Saddam Hussein's palace. I stayed there for a week when I was embedded. American military divided it up into kind of like barracks. But in your little hall, they had like a little tiny room.
- [42:53]
Jack Fowler
Like, did you have a golden toilet, Victor?
- [42:56]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, yeah, it was like 10ft by 10ft for little cot. And there were, I don't know, two, 300 of them. And you could see little flashes of gold trim on the walls, on the ceilings. And Trump's fascination with gold or his fascination with his blond hair and the orange man, that just gets somebody from Carmel, California, or Martha's Vineyard or the Obama crowd, you know what I mean? Or Hillary Clinton it. And that's Tommy Robinson.
- [43:27]
Jack Fowler
I think they showed the various world leaders on their. On their Screens and this was yesterday against Saturday and it was the Uniting the Kingdom rally. So folks want to check it out, they haven't seen. Anyway, they were showing Macron and others, boo, boo, boo. And then Trump came up. They showed Trump's picture, the crowd roared. So it's. They love them.
- [43:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
I'll never get over that. Two scenes when he was at the funeral of the Pope and he had that everybody, all the commentators were going, well, it's very. Do you feel embarrassed? That black tie funeral attire and the President has a blue suit and a red. Isn't that very inappropriate? And then almost as soon as they'd said that, he got up and he was swarmed and he was swarmed by left Merz and Macron. And then when they were rebuilding right after the election, before he was inaugurated, when they were invited, Macron invited him into Notre Dame. Remember that? Yeah, he's like, as I said at the time, he's like that line from Shakespeare, you know, he dust strode like a colossus and we were pygmies beneath his feet, hollow little men. And they were just trying to grab any bit of him they could. They wanted to share in his power.
- [44:44]
Jack Fowler
We don't want to make any religious connotations here, but kind of reminds me of touch the hem of the garment, you know.
- [44:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, it is.
- [44:51]
Jack Fowler
There are people that want to do
- [44:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
that and it's based on a certain thing. And the certain thing, whether you. I don't want to be reductionist, but they do that because ultimately, if the US Secretary of treasure says something about the dollar or the interest rates or the Fed or a Secretary of State and the President says something about tariffs or somebody says there's a need to do something and there's 11 carrier groups and 2,500 combat aircraft. And then you compare it to what, Britain. That's why they do it. They really do believe they're Socrates and we're Caesar or Augustus. We have the power and we're Roman, I don't know. Subjects of their utopian thought. And they want to come up to Trump and tell him, well, you know, we have a problem in Chad. Could you give us be feeling right? You know, that's what they want. They want stuff from us and he can do it and they can't. So they have all the dreams, we should go have a coalition of the willing and bomb Libya for seven months. How'd that work? We have a coalition of willing. We're going to bomb Serbia for 70. But oh, did we say we need you to do it for us. It's like that fable with the little mice. The mouse gets up and says, well, we wouldn't be eaten if we knew the cat was coming. And I've got a brilliant idea. We'll just put a little collar around his neck with a bell on it to alert us. And then the little mice. This is in Greek. You can read it. And then the little mice said, but who's going to bell the cat? You? No, not me. I'm not going to bell the cat. They think the United States is going to bail the cat.
- [46:41]
Jack Fowler
Well, before we take a break, and when we come back from the break, we will talk about Fauci. I do want to say, since we're talking about the powerfulness of Donald Trump, that he admitted when he met with Chi, and this is after coming back from China, I think he was talking to, maybe it was Brett Baer, but this has to do with Jimmy Lai. And he raised Jimmy Lai's imprisonment and said, come on, let him out. He's older, he's ill. And Trump said, you know, normally when I engage in these things, he did that also. There was a Christian, the pastor, American pastor. And Chi seemed open to discussing that with Jimmy Lai. Trump said the response was not positive. He said he. She said, he's. He lies been sort of my worst nightmare. But Trump said, I do not feel optimistic. But it was very good that he did raise Jimmy Lai with him. I think Jimmy Lai, I've met Jimmy. I know him a little. I think he's. I mean, he's a British citizen, and the British really have done nothing.
- [47:50]
Victor Davis Hanson
It's very funny. I was thinking about that, that all the Bulwark people, the never Trumpers, Tucker, now all these people say Trump is a dictator. But Chi would never say to Trump, I wish you wouldn't harass or put. Can we get Tucker out of jail? Can we get Bill Kristol out of jail? Because they all say he's a fascist or he's satanic or something, but he's not. And he can't let Jimmy lie out, given the system that he operates on. He's sitting on a volcano. And if he. A very prominent, idealistic, humane critic of him, not some person that's just young and crazy and screams. But Jimmy Lai is a wonderful person, and he's made a life of very heroic criticism of the communist totalitarian regime. And they put him. They're going to destroy him. But if he lets him out, they're afraid, like Putin is afraid that there'll be What a thousand Jimmy Lai's pop up and regional and there will be. So they're on the back of a tiger, all those. They ride the tiger and if they get off, they're going to be devoured and they know that. And sometimes they slip off or they're thrown off and they're devoured. Look at Maduro, look at Saddam Hussein, look at Assad. They all have a rendezvous with a bad fate. But from here and now, they think they can write it out, but they're not going to let a principled critic get out.
- [49:21]
Jack Fowler
Well, Jimmy Lai's fate, I think, is tied to the demise of China. I do think it will not have been a good thing to have arrested him in the first place. But you mentioned Bill Kristol. Let's end this segment with this. Just to quote him on X yesterday, I'm pro freedom, pro law and order, pro limited government and pro the Declaration and the Constitution. And so today I'm a Democrat. So thank you, Bill.
- [49:50]
Victor Davis Hanson
I remember the Weekly Standard when he raised all that money for that money, losing. It was a good magazine, but he was losing money from the beginning. I think Murdoch subsidized it for years.
- [50:02]
Jack Fowler
Well, he owned it. But he was paid a million dollars. He was paid a staggering amount of money.
- [50:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, he was. He always has been paid a staggering amount. But my first impression from when I heard that was, so you're probably 72 or 73, and you're basically telling us for 50 years when you worked for Dan Quayle, when you took the role in trying to stop Obamacare, you were the prince of conservative ideas, even though you never really wrote, you know, you didn't write books or anything, but you were the spokesman for the conservative, along with probably people like William F. Buckley and George Will. And now you're telling us that that was all a lie. And it was all a lie because you've completely refuted every position you ever held because Donald Trump, you didn't like him and you felt. But even though if you look at the agenda that Donald Trump did in his first term and second, border security, reduction in crime, deterrent, foreign policy, pro Israel, eliminating existential threats like Baghdadi, Soleimani, the Wagner group, Maduro, the Iranian nuclear facilities, no new Green Deal, emphasis on traditional transitional fuels, gas, oil, coal, that's nuclear. That's everything you told us. And now you've completely refuted it because not because the message, necessarily because of the messenger. And your ego was hurt. And now out of spite, you're trying to reject everything, not trying to reject it. You're trying to work hard to make sure that no American has conservative governance. And that's what he's doing.
- [51:55]
Jack Fowler
Hell hath no fury like a runt.
- [51:58]
Victor Davis Hanson
I admire people who say, I don't admire my necessary agreement, but I can understand when they say, I don't like Trump. He's too uncouth, he's too foul. But his agenda is what I, it's what I want. There's nothing in that agenda that is not conservative. So I'm going to vote for him and I agree with him on 90% of the agenda and I don't agree the way that he does it.
- [52:23]
Jack Fowler
Also, the alternatives are Marxist.
- [52:26]
Victor Davis Hanson
So, yeah, it's not a Democrat. It's a very good point. That's not Democratic alternative. It's not Bill Clinton. I'm going to get 100,000 police officers. It's not even Obama. It's democratic socialist communism now.
- [52:38]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, maybe that's what he should have said. Well, he said he was, today, I'm a communist.
- [52:45]
Victor Davis Hanson
So he says that I'm for little government. At a time when you're looking at in Chicago, in Minneapolis, in Maine, in California, you're probably looking at $250 billion of stolen funds from bureaucracy. And you're saying, and it's all managed by Democrats. And you're saying that you're for that party because they're for small government. No, that's not what you're saying, Bill Kristol. You're saying basically that I'm going to flip completely over because I have been such a useful idiot for the left and they have so paid me and subsidized me that I to, at various points in my tenure for them, my servitude for them. I have to say certain things that replenish my credibility, that I am a left wing radical and then they will continue to subsidize the bulwark.
- [53:38]
Jack Fowler
I like the word servitude.
- [53:41]
Victor Davis Hanson
That's what it is. Unless he really wants us to believe that he got up one day and said, my whole life was a lie. Oh, my gosh, does anybody believe that? I can see it if Donald Trump was a liberal, you know, he said, you know, we need Black Lives Matter, we need more dei, we need the open border. I agreed. Basically, I could even see it if he was kind of a McCain figure. Oh, the Republican Party is just a rhino or whatever. But he's conservative, or at least his policies are. And they were exactly, they dovetail exactly what he told us millions of conservatives that this is what you should do. And he was well paid for it. And he was. Now he's very well paid for saying everything I said before just cancel out, forget it. It was a lie. What I've said the last four years is what is true in the last 50 years was a lie. And that's true of all those guys. All of those were Trumpers.
- [54:43]
Jack Fowler
All right, speaking of liars, we're going to talk about the whistleblower CIA whistleblower who appeared before the Senate committee to talk about what Anthony Fauci and other leaders in government did to cover up where Covid emanated from. And we'll get Victor's take on that if we have any time left about Gavin Newsom and some California politics when we come back from these important messages. Messages.
- [55:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
Since the founding of America 250 years ago, many things have changed. But some things never do. The commitment of husband and wife, the importance of passing along our values to our children. The faithfulness of the gone. Some wonder how we can ensure America will continue to thrive as long as we keep first things first. We've only just begun. America the Beautiful.
- [55:45]
Jack Fowler
We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. I'm trying to speak English correctly, Victor. I'll get there eventually. We're recording on Sunday, May 17th, 2026. This episode is up on Tuesday, May 19th Victor's website. The Blade of Perseus is a thing to which you can subscribe at 6 doll 50 cents a month. But if you want to take the discount, do the full year and it's $65. It's like getting two free months. Why would you do that? Because twice a week Victor writes an exclusive article for the Blade of Perseus. And once a week he does an exclusive video. And there's tons of free stuff there anyway, archives galore. So you can spend all day just rummaging around and getting your VDH on. But if you don't subscribe, you're not going to be able to read the article. So I heart recommend it. And again, I've said this on previous podcasts. I think it makes a great gift. So mom, dad, somebody like Father's Day dad is coming up. Consider it as a gift. Okay, Victor, just to torture people further with the sound of my voice, here's the headline. CIA whistleblower alleges cover up of COVID 19 lab leak. Intelligence spy scientists repeatedly concluded that a lab accident caused the COVID 19 pandemic. But more senior bureaucrats watered down and suppressed their conclusions. A CIA Senior operations officer testified to Congress on Wednesday. His name is James E. Erdman iii. He described under oath in a hearing call by Rand Paul on Wednesday a pattern of obstruction that promoted the conclusions of a tight knit group of virologists close to Anthony Fauci, while downplaying the conclusions of the intelligence community's own biological experts. It goes on. Victor, I think most people probably have heard about this. So would you comment on this? And also we've talked about it before. Stephen Kuei, who's been your guest on podcasts, is also up for running this department. Go ahead, please.
- [57:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, what it basically was is that Donald Trump came into office in 2017, in 2019, the economy was booming by November. And then we had this mysterious virus in which all of the medical community, if you remember what Hillary said, she said it was a gift from God because it destroyed the momentum of Donald Trump. And then all of the agencies, all of the agencies, the deep state, administrative, whatever you want to call it, and that includes these middle to high level CIA people. And Donald Trump, the first administration, remember, he did not, he said, I had only been to Washington 10 or 15 times in my life. And I don't, he didn't really know what the, that it was not just a, there was no really Democratic Republican antithesis as far as a bureaucracy. It was all left. And he got people in there, they're fine people. Bill Barr, John Bolton, Jim Mattis, I know, John Kelly, you name them. But they were not ideologically akin to what he wanted. And they felt that Donald Trump was a dangerous character. And their duty was not just to carry out his directives and use their expertise to expedite his agenda, but to stop it and when. So it was that context. So when Donald Trump came out very early, he said it was a China virus. And he started saying things. Why did they stop travel outside of Wuhan in China, but not to our countries? Because they were spreading it and we're going to get out of the wh. That was an anathema. That was a heresy. He was an apostate as far as the bureaucracy. So in that context, Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins and the hierarchy of the National Institutes of Health, the cdc, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci's turf, and by the way, by title, he wasn't the important person, but by tenure and aggrandizement and the money at his disposal, he was, he was running a mall. And so they had felt that it had been unwise to stop gain of function Research, and it wasn't that dangerous. And they wanted to keep going. So they greenlighted the sale of instrumentation to that Wuhan lab. They let people, they encouraged people to go over there, and they directed at least $600,000 to the arch villain, Peter Dasak, who stealthily was funding it in a small but symbolic way. And they were not capable. They either were not capable of ensuring safety because they were amateurs. The French built the thing and they didn't understand how it worked. And people had gone over there and said, this is a disaster waiting to happen, or the PLA came in and was running it very quickly and they had military concerns. It might have been a bioweapon, tangential operation, we don't know. And it leaked. And then Fauci thought, oh my gosh, this thing, it killed a million Americans and 50 million. But that number was just artificially low. I got it twice. I had long Covid for the first time, six months, second time, fourth month. The mass that I had in my lung, the ground glass opacity. One of the radiologists said, this is from some type of infectious inflammation that you had and probably was what caused the mutation. But all of us have those stories about how it affected their lives. And he was responsible for it. Fauci was, and Collins knew that. So they got together right after that and they tried to hide it. And part of that hiding is they need an official imprimatur from an investigative agency. And so they called the CIA and it was not really under a Trump person at the time. And they said, we've got to stamp out this right wing, Donald Trump racist rant, whatever language they needed to convince them it wasn't much because the people we know from the FBI and from John Brennan's CIA and from Peter Strzok, they hated Trump. Director of National Intelligence, CIA, they all hated him. So they tried to cover this up and tried to say, we need an official investigation. And there was a whistleblower and said, you people are lying. All of the people in the field have gone over there and they've looked at this. If it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck, it's a duck. Oh my gosh. There's a Level 4 biology lab right in Wuhan. It started in Wuhan. They've never found an animal that transmitted the disease to a human. There is no evidence that people got it in the pan. The people who got the virus came out of the lab. The people who tried to call attention to it are missing. And they kept at it Peter Dasak got Lancet, one of the most prestigious journals in the world, on medicine. They got them to make a phony investigation to say it was a pangolin, and that was it. Nicholas, I'm trying to remember his name. He was the New Yorker. He was a scientific writer. He's in his 70s, and he was really good, and he wrote about it very courageously. And they hounded him and they fired him. And Tom Cotton wrote a. Remember that? That op ed said it came from the Wuhan lab, and they went nuts. Now we know why. And then we know why. Biden pardoned them because he knew they were culpable. The only thing that's a mystery now, the statute of limitations are over. They're pardoned for their sins, but they're not pardoned for their future sins. So I think it'll be very hard for Fauci or Collins to come back into Congress and testify under oath, because they will ask them point blank, did you or did you not fund this? Did you or did you not write this email? Did you or did. And if they lie, they're not. They're subject to prosecution, and this administration will prosecute them. And so that'll be interesting to see what happens. As far as Fauci, he did so much damage, you know, to the. You don't need a mask. Who needs a mask? Oh, you need one mask. You know, if you get two masks, it's better. We don't know whether the vaccine. It's such a new virus. We can't. The vaccination will prevent you from getting infected and it will prevent you from infecting others. And then when they had the breakout case, like seven months. I got Covid six months after I was vaccinated. And I got vaccinated early March of 2021. 20. When was. Yeah, no, 2020. I got vaccinated in March, and I got a. My first. I had three covids, but the first wasn't as bad as the last two. But anyway, my point was it didn't work and it didn't stop. People maybe mitigated the effects, but it also had certain side effects we don't need to get into. So that's a disaster. We had Stephen Quay. He came on here. He was the PhD MD researcher. He was very well known at Stanford Medical center because he was the one that invented or found the best. Found a dye contrast for a magnetic resonance imaging MRIs that nuclear. I think it is Gaudelionium, I think it's called, or something like that. And he's, you know, he, he had a company, I think he still does, that has immunotherapy for breast cancer, et cetera, et cetera. And he's been mentioned as somebody who might take over the now vacant National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. And he'd be a wonderful choice. And I hope they and he's a conservative and as much as a medical person is political, but that he's not going to be some raving. He's competent and he believes in the Trump agenda. So I think it would be a wonderful appointment.
- [66:55]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, he's eloquent. Also, his podcast with you, I think you did three interviews with him were just some of the finest discussions I've ever heard.
- [67:05]
Victor Davis Hanson
I'm going to have him on next week, I think, about the Hantavirus. He wrote me about it. The way people were talking about it, they were talking about as if it's a Covid, like, you know what I mean, it's going to take over the world. And I think he's had a lot of experience with infectious diseases and he's been, you know, he's very competent. So I think I'm looking forward to that when we get him on.
- [67:30]
Jack Fowler
Well, let's round close out today, Victor. We'll leave some other topics for our next episode, but the headline here, Gavin Newsom reveals break glass emergency plan to block Republican governor. So a lot of people are, I think California, California may be the only state where in a primary, the top two finishers of the primary become the candidates in the final election. And that's happened any number of times. You have two Democrats who are running against each other for the United States Senate, for example, that I think came about in 2010. It kind of reminds me of now of Virginia, where, hey, we don't want this. Oh, now we're in power, we want this. And, oh, now we don't want.
- [68:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
So I think they foisted it on us.
- [68:20]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. So what are the Democrats looking at? Well, Steve Hinton's in first place according to polls, and I, you're there. I, I don't know the sheriff's name, but it's possible two Republicans can come out in the 12 positions in the primary. Yes, it was.
- [68:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
But when they took out Swalwell and then they got others to drop out and Villa Garrosa is not going anywhere. Steyer's imploded, Kathleen Porter, so they only have Becerra and he's not, he's neck and neck with Hilton. And Chad Bianco is a Little bit behind. Anything can happen. I think the polls will over represent. There's two known unknowns, these polls I think underrepresent in California, they do conservatives because they don't want to voice anything about what they feel because they're put upon. And the other is we don't look at voter fraud as voter fraud here. When the DMV a few years ago said oh by the way, we mailed out 100,000 ballots to illegal aiding, it was just like, well, I mean, what's the difference why you get angry? So when you have mail in balloting and early balloting in California and you don't check the voter rolls, it's very hard. I think where I am in a congressional seat twice or three times. The person who lost Democrat on election day, everybody said he won because of the sciu, get out the vote, mail in balloting, et cetera. And he did, he lost on election day. And then everybody just waited around. In California it takes three weeks. Insane. The left does not look at welfare fraud or election and balloting tampering as unethical or crimes. They say that the ruling white oppressor, capitalist, oligarchic is toxic. And so anything you can do, it's not just social murder. If you're Luigi, they commit social murder. They commit social crime so you can be a social assassin. That's what what Luigi Mangione is. That's what Hassan Piker said. So if you need to rig the ballots or you need to spread the wealth with federal and state monies, that's fine because it rectifies an injustice by the system. Yeah.
- [71:00]
Jack Fowler
Viva Saul Alinsky. That's their template game book.
- [71:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
Saul Alinsky was here right now. He'd have to be very careful unless he'd have to really come out like Bernie Sanders. To hate Israel. To hate Israel and that. And he'd have to do that every day because they would turn on him if he didn't.
- [71:22]
Jack Fowler
I have to go back and watch A firing line from way 1968 or so. He and Buckley had him on the show. I saw it a long time ago. Fascinating stuff.
- [71:32]
Victor Davis Hanson
You know, it's very funny. My father had a, I think I mentioned it to you, a lecture series and we did all the yeoman work and helped set up chairs so he could pay these people a lot of money. So in little Reedley, California in the 60s and I think up till early 70s he had Pearl Buck and Gore Vidal and Louis Leakey and all those people. But there were some people who complained and said that they were either conservative. They weren't. But they wanted a Saul Alinsky, and he wanted a fantastic fee. My dad really didn't know who he was. So they had Saul Alinsky.
- [72:15]
Jack Fowler
Did he eat dinner at your house?
- [72:16]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, no. What happened was immediately Cesar Chavez heard about it, so they got. The tickets were free, but you had to have a ticket. So they went and got all these tickets. Well, they only had 3,000 or 2,000 in the auditorium, the basketball court at the junior college. So they moved it to the convention center, where there was five, I think, or six or more, and it was sold out. So then all of a sudden, all these AGVA business people said, wait, wait, he's a commie. So they called my dad up and said, what the heck are you doing? He's a commie. You're spending our tax dollars on a commie. And so my dad said to my mom, is he a commie? I mean, he read it. I mean, he knew he was an organizer. He said. I thought he was kind of like George Meaney or somebody. He said, no. My mom said, well, you know, he's very radical. And then my dad got stubborn. He said, well, Saul Alinsky called up and said, this is great. You know, he loved it that there's going to be this huge crowd in Fresno because it was a. UFW had taken over the audience. And so he said, I'm coming, and it's very brave of you. And then my dad thought, well, nobody's going to push me around, right? Free speech. And then they called the anemic president of the college and he told my father, cancel it. And that was basically the end of the lecture series. Oh, wow. Yeah. He was a creepy guy, though. I know.
- [73:56]
Jack Fowler
I'm embarrassed to even mention this brief anecdote, but part of. He would do anything strategically to upset whatever the target was so upset the Rochester Symphony. And he said, you know what? He suggested a bunch of black guys go to lunch and eat a ton of baked beans. I can't believe I'm telling this. No, he didn't go to the symphony and have lunch. Pardon? For my French fartathon. To disrupt the symphony. Who thinks this way?
- [74:29]
Victor Davis Hanson
He was the one that really introduced. It had been done. But he mainstreamed the idea that politics is all inclusive. So if you're going to be on a board, like, take Rebecca Mercer, who's a friend of mine, who's a very wonderful person. She gives big philanthropists, and she was on the National. She was on the Museum of Natural History, I think, in New York. And they went after her. And remember, they moved statues as well. Wasn't it Teddy Roosevelt?
- [74:58]
Jack Fowler
Teddy Roosevelt, yeah.
- [74:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
So he was the guy who said, you go through museums, foundations, and you get rid of everybody. And that's why it was in his tenure that the Rockefeller flipped, the Guggenheim flipped, the Ford foundation flipped. I mean, they had been left of center liberal, but they weren't commie nutty crazy like they are now. That's when the aba, all of them. Because his whole philosophy was, you get up every morning and every aspect of society has to be weaponized by the left. Schools, academia, culture, sports, everything. And that's really what happened to our society. So we got, you know, Colin Kaepernick. You say, I want to get rid of. I want to just get away from this for a second. You turn on TV and there's Colin Kaepernick and Brian take a knee, say, oh, I can't take this anymore. I got to get out of here. So I'm going to turn on a basketball game or something. And Then here is LeBron James reading, I don't know, saluting China. Yeah. And then Steve Kerr, is that his name? The coach of the Warriors. He's giving a lecture why he's dealing with these genocidal Chinese. So that was Saul Alinsky's legacy. Everything is political. And that's how he did. He is responsible for the left's takeover of the cultural institution.
- [76:24]
Jack Fowler
Marched through all the institutions, he did. There's nothing. Nowhere to hide.
- [76:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
Nowhere.
- [76:29]
Jack Fowler
Well, Victor, we're going to wrap this up as we do at the end of our podcast. I have a ton of continents that people have left. YouTube, Rumble, your website, Apple. I have four to read. One is from Lynette Poloka. Poloka. Sorry if I mispronounce your name. Oh, my goodness. Victor and his knowledge help America realize our strength. How can propaganda hope to win when we have the truth? Thank you, VDH and friends. Then donnied9432 writes, I want one of those Daily Signal caps. Now. It looks like the professor has a white one. That was the other day. They have a white one for summer. Too hot for a black one in summertime. Could wear an apple.
- [77:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
You gotta get more. I had an implant surgery and I left it, I think, at the dentist office. My Daily Signal, I need to. But I'm wearing because of my other affiliation, the Hoover Institution.
- [77:27]
Jack Fowler
The Hoover, Yeah. Your white hat that you were wearing the other day was also Hoover Institution.
- [77:31]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, it was a Hoover Institution.
- [77:32]
Jack Fowler
Rob, Louie, if you're watching yeah, Rob,
- [77:35]
Victor Davis Hanson
we need a lot more Daily Signal. That's yeah.
- [77:38]
Jack Fowler
Raman Moab writes an Iranian watching from Norway. Keep the amazing work, Victor. The people following leftists in the US don't know what Islamic Republic brought to us Iranians in 1979. Otherwise they wouldn't cheer these Qatari backed leftists in New York City. Or the kind. Amen brother. And then finally Texas Reaper writes. Mr. Hansen, you have a calming influence on me when I listen to you. Thanks for being present in my life. I look forward forward to seeing you each day. I hope your health.
- [78:11]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you.
- [78:12]
Jack Fowler
Improves. Yeah. I'm Jack Fowler and I write Civil Thoughts, a free weekly email newsletter. Go to civilthoughts.com, sign up. It comes out every Friday, 1415 recommended readings, totally free. We're not selling your names. I know you're going to like it. Thanks to those who do that again, Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus. Do subscribe and go to Amazon and order Victor's book coming out out in a few months.
- [78:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, the Counter Revolution.
- [78:41]
Jack Fowler
All right. Well, you've been terrific, Victor. I love what you did today. Love all the analyses and thanks for doing that. Thanks folks for watching and listening. And we'll be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words.
- [78:56]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you everybody for listening and watching. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website@victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.