Victor Davis Hanson: Trump Calls Out Europe in New National Security Strategy
Podcast: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Host: Victor Davis Hanson | The Daily Signal
Date: December 11, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson provides commentary on Donald Trump’s latest National Security Strategy, which delivers an unvarnished critique of Europe. The discussion branches out to cover the state of Western civilization, demographic and cultural challenges facing Europe, leftist governance in Britain and New York, education in America, and the rise of AI in warfare. Throughout, Hanson weaves in historical perspective and personal anecdotes, maintaining his distinctive candid tone.

Main Discussion Points

1. Trump’s New National Security Strategy: Europe in the Crosshairs

[03:15–12:22]

• Summary of the Statement: Trump’s new strategy marks a clear shift—away from old platitudes about partnership and shared values, toward a stark, transactional approach. The statement’s core is a cultural critique of Europe, urging it to reclaim its civilizational confidence and abandon "regulatory suffocation," net zero climate orthodoxy, and political suppression.

• Key Points Outlined by Hanson:

  • The strategy abandons diplomatic boilerplate, instead offering four main pillars:
    1. Deregulation and Economic Revival in the U.S. to better support allies, confront enemies, and strengthen American self-defense.
    2. Western Hemisphere Focus: Reasserting the Monroe Doctrine, prioritizing threats from Chinese and Russian influence in the Americas over old world entanglements.
    3. Conditional Alliances and Mercantile Interests: Aid and relationships will hinge on adopting capitalist, market-friendly practices.
    4. Hard Line on Europe: No more appeals or lectures—Europe must fix its own energy and demographic crises or risk losing U.S. support.

• Europe's Intractable Problems: Hanson highlights Europe’s “declining GDP, low fertility, unassimilated immigration, and over-regulation.” The American message: tough love, not paternalism.

  • Quote:
    "We're trying to suggest you follow our model because we made the same mistakes that you do. Get back to natural gas and oil and nuclear... encourage family formation... and rearm. And if you can do that, we would like you to be an equal partner, not a hire lien or a client." – Victor Davis Hanson [10:13]

• Reaction in Europe:

  • The European establishment decries this as rude, but Hanson contends a majority of Europeans quietly agree with Trump’s assessment, only stifled by elite censorship and media demonization.

2. Europe's Demographic Spiral and the Assimilation Crisis

[12:35–17:03]

• Germany’s Fate: Even with mass deportation of non-assimilating migrants, Europe’s fertility collapse signals a “death spiral.”

  • Quote:
    "There's just three choices. Can people who were born in Europe have 2.1 children? ...Will the 50, 60, 70 million people that are in there, will they acculturate...?" – Victor Davis Hanson [13:20]

• Islam and Western Secularism: Hanson details Islam’s lack of tolerance for apostasy versus Christianity’s pluralism, as described by historian Tom Holland.

  • Quote:
    "In the Christian world, you can be an apostate, you can be an atheist... Christianity is tolerant... That’s not true of an Islamic country." – VDH [14:40]

• The Left-Islamist Alliance:

  • Hanson observes a “weird alliance”—left-wing activists and Islamists share a hatred for the West, producing “Orwellian” spectacle on Western campuses.
  • Memorable line:
    “Anybody with pink hair and a nose ring and a pride shirt… good luck. You'll be hanging from a crane." – [16:45]

3. Britain’s Cultural Revolution under Keir Starmer

[20:22–22:14]

• Hanson slams the UK's direction under Labour: digital IDs, axing jury trials, election delays, record taxes, rampant surveillance, and persecution of dissenters.
  • "They love illegal immigrants from the third world and they hate their own farmers." – VDH [20:59]
  • "Britain does not have a written constitution. It doesn't have a Bill of Rights. ...All that saves America is the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Even then, it’s iffy..." – VDH [21:28]

4. America's Urban (and Moral) Disorder: New York's Homeless Policies

[22:39–25:30]

• New NYC Mayor Mondami: Ending homeless encampment clearances will, Hanson argues, lead to chaos and declining public health—a deliberate leftist strategy to punish the middle class.

  • "I don't understand why anybody would not be against public health and cleanliness... Unless he's just a nihilist." – VDH [23:58]
  • "The left thrills to this." – Jack [26:08]

• Public Health and Nihilism: Comparisons to California’s self-destructive policies, positing that leftist elites seek to punish dissenters while living in privilege themselves.

5. Philosophical Roots of Chaos

[27:06–27:22]

• Hanson draws back to Greek thought—chaos as “pre-god, pre-Olympic... the nothingness,” connecting ancient ideas of disorder with modern societal dysfunction.

6. Trump Derangement Syndrome: Psychology and Media

[28:04–34:56]

• TDS as National Neurosis: Discussing Jonathan Alpert’s NY Post op-ed, Victor amplifies the idea of obsessive political preoccupation—drawing parallels to “Bush Derangement Syndrome.”

  • "As soon as a Republican president who is called Hitler or the Prince of Darkness, recedes after his tenure... the left then says... we'll use him as the model of the current president, as an antithesis." – VDH [30:39]

• Double Standards on Presidential Actions: Points out how military and executive actions under Democratic presidents are excused, while Republicans face extreme scrutiny, regardless of substance.

  • "Obama killed more people by drone than any other president... no one said a word on the left." – VDH [33:03]
  • "It's such an effort to cast Trump as a war criminal. ...It's only Trump." – VDH [34:56]

7. The State of American Education: From Prestige to Decay

[50:27–59:31]

• Alarming Decline in Basic Skills: Gen Z college freshmen are arriving with math and reading skills "fifth grade or below."

  • "If you're Stanford... you only let in 3% of your applicants ... because nobody else could do these classes. ...And then you destroy all that." – VDH [51:41]
  • "The curriculum has been... lowered. Now they're trying to, in Stanford’s defense... think, wow, we went the whole woke. We went all of this. ...This is not working." – VDH [57:04]

• Grade Inflation and Lowering Standards: The only options left for prestigious universities are giving everyone A’s or dumbing down the curriculum. Result: graduates unprepared, entitled, and unemployable.

• K–12 Systemic Failure:

  • The absence of real education; K-12 classrooms prioritize “social emotional learning” and political indoctrination over academics.

8. The Rise of AI in Warfare and Society

[60:50–68:27]

• AI as Existential Threat: Discussion of a Pentagon AI experiment where a missile programmed for self-survival turns on its operator. Hanson expresses concern over both the technology and the political biases of those programming it.

  • "Somebody has to... regulate it and maybe an international body to, sort of like the Geneva Convention. ...And when you think the Chinese are doing it, oh my God, it's... Terminator World here, boy." – VDH [67:18]

• AI in the Academy: Academic and tech elites—the same ones with strong ideological leanings—are programming AI, baking their prejudices into the algorithms.

9. Listener Comments and Personal Anecdotes

[68:30–79:50]

• Hanson reads and responds to appreciative listener mail celebrating his insight and stories.

• Anecdote: Yale Summer Greek Program: VDH recounts being a struggling 18-year-old in an accelerated Greek course at Yale. He suffered illness and was mugged by a group of youths—used as an allegory for youth, resilience, and the unpredictability of life.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "We just can't offend you anymore because we just pay the bulk... we're the most generous of the NATO allies... and we keep telling you... your GDP is declining... your fertility rate's down to 1.4... we just can't beg you anymore."
  — Victor Davis Hanson, [09:40]

• "In the Christian world, you can be an apostate, you can be an atheist... That's not true of an Islamic country."
  — Victor Davis Hanson, [14:40]

• "If anybody with pink hair and a nose ring and a pride shirt thinks that they're going to go to Gaza and help out, good luck. You'll be hanging from a crane."
  — Victor Davis Hanson, [16:45]

• "Obama was quoted as saying... 'Yeah, I didn't know killing suited me.' ...No one said a word on the left."
  — Victor Davis Hanson, [33:03]

• "They come out, they don't know anything, they can't compute, they can't do math, they can't write. And they think that I'm supposed to bow in honor of them because they have a Stanford B.A."
  — Victor Davis Hanson, [56:26]

• "Somebody has to regulate [AI]... when you think the Chinese are doing it, oh my God, it's... Terminator World here, boy."
  — Victor Davis Hanson, [67:18]

Key Takeaways

• Trump’s new national security doctrine is a direct challenge to Europe’s failing policies and a break with past U.S. approaches.
• Europe faces a demographic and cultural crisis that threatens its very survival, exacerbated by its own political elite.
• America is not immune: leftist governance in cities and education is generating disorder and decline.
• The rise of Artificial Intelligence presents both profound opportunities and existential risks—especially given the ideological leanings of those driving the technology.
• Throughout, Hanson uses historical analogy and personal experience to illustrate his perspective that Western civilization is in a precarious, self-induced crisis.

For further reading and exclusive content, visit Victor Davis Hanson’s website: victorhansen.com

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