Barack, Regrettably, Re-Emerges.

When empires debase their currency, citizens who hold gold survive the transition.

That's not opinion, it's documented fact.

Trump's economic warning isn't speculation, it's pattern recognition.

The same signals that preceded every major currency crisis are flashing now.

Unsustainable debt, foreign nations dumping our bonds, and central banks hoarding gold.

But Trump's also revealing the solution.

The IRS strategy he's used for decades is available to every American.

It's how the wealthy preserve their fortunes when paper currencies fail.

American Alternative Assets has documented this strategy in their free 2025 wealth protection guide.

It shows exactly how to position yourself before the turbulence Trump's warning about arrives.

Call 888-615-8047 for your free guide.

That's 888-615-8047 or visit victorlovesgold.com.

The patterns are clear.

Make sure you're on the right side of them.

Hello, ladies.

Hello, gentlemen.

Welcome to the Victor Davis-Hanson Show.

Victor is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hubert Institution and the Wayna Marshabusky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College and a man with a website.

The Blade of Perseus, its address is victorhanson.com.

You should be subscribing.

It's $65 a year, $6.50 a month if you want to stick your toe in the water first.

And when you do that, you will be able to read the two weekly exclusive pieces Victor writes for his website.

And he also does an exclusive weekly video a subscribers.

So, check that out.

The Blade of Perseus.

Hey, Victor.

Hello, my friend.

I apologize for my groggy,

groggy ways.

Got a little vertigo going on here.

A little head cold.

You got a head cold, yeah.

I got a head cold.

Yeah, we'll get cold seasons.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a little mold in the air here.

But we'll get through it.

And we're going to talk, we're going to begin the show

with your thoughts on the mockery of thoughts thoughts and prayers.

And we'll get to that when we come back from these important messages.

I knew we all had two ages, our actual age and our internal biological age.

What I didn't know is I've likely lowered my biological age without even knowing it.

Here's the thing.

Because Americans eat so many processed foods and not enough fruits and veggies, many, perhaps most, are 10 plus years older on the inside than their actual age.

They're ticking time bombs.

A major university study suggests how to slow aging and diffuse that biological time bomb.

Participants slowed their aging by drinking field of greens.

That's all.

They didn't change their eating, drinking, or exercise, just field of greens.

When I started field of greens to replace my multivitamin, I was amazed.

After about two weeks, my energy improved, I've been exercising more, and my overall wellness feels great.

Each fruit and vegetable in Field of Greens was doctor selected for specific health benefits.

Cell health, heart, lungs, kidney, metabolism, even healthy weight.

It's wonderful knowing Field of Greens can slow how quickly I'm aging.

And I encourage you to join me, swap your untested fruit, vegetable, or green drink for Field of Greens.

While there's time, check out the university study and get 20%

off when using promo code VICTOR at fieldofgreens.com.

That's fieldofgreens.com, promo code Victor.

And we'd like to thank Field of Greens for continuing to sponsor the Victor Davis Hansen Show.

At a time when Americans are more divided than ever, Connecting America is a place where everyone can gather and express their opinions with no disrespect.

And what better place than a Jersey diner to host this show?

Because where else but a diner can you find a buffet of opinions, ideas, and real connections?

Connecting America, a brand new national program that aims to truly connect everyday people and is dedicated to showcasing ideas and embracing civil conversation.

We'll also include amazing ways to improve your fitness, health, and nutrition, revive your spiritual self, and give your home a makeover.

Connecting America streams live every weekday from 7 a.m.

to 9 a.m.

Eastern Time.

Our program is led by a group of award-winning journalists, including me, Jim Rosenfield, plus Allison Camerata and Dave Briggs.

We'll also hear from America's psychologist Dr.

Jeff Gardier and former Fox News senior foreign affairs correspondent Amy Kellogg.

Join us wherever you get your podcasts.

We're back with the Victor Davis-Hansen show.

We are recording on Saturday, August 30th, and this episode will be up on Tuesday, September

2nd.

So, Victor,

I'm not sure.

I didn't get to listen to you if you and Sammy, the great Sammy Wink, discuss the killings, the murders in Minnesota by the transgender

man who shot up that Catholic

church and schoolchildren.

But

in the aftermath of it, let me just read this.

Scott Jennings on

CNN,

he wrote, tragedy struck a Minneapolis Catholic school today, and the very first thing Mayor Jacob Fry did was attack people of faith for calling for prayer.

I couldn't believe it when I heard it.

Whatever your political ideology, there are few moments where prayer is more appropriate.

So he also, I think, was critical of Jen Saki, who mocked that.

And then

I'll shut up after this, Gretchen Carlson, who's also on CNN a lot.

She used to be on Fox.

She was critical of Jennings saying something like, well, the point wasn't that people shouldn't pray.

The point was that thoughts and prayers are not enough to fix this solely American crisis of allowing peoples to obtain quite easily war-type weaponry to kill children who are praying.

I don't know, Victor, too cute by half on that, I think.

Your thoughts on the critics of people who want to pray in the aftermath of tragedy?

Yeah, I don't know why they,

I mean, they should welcome that.

And it was almost they always say that this is

This is just about guns, but it seems that it isn't that they always they always champion the person

I don't mean champion that may be too unfair to them but they always sympathize or side with the victimizer and play down the victimizer.

I'm thinking of the cran shooter remember in Tennessee?

They suppressed the

remember the memoir or the manifesto, supposedly?

Why wouldn't they want they didn't want to publish that even though it was quite incriminating.

And it was also apparently evident of the psychological turmoil this trans person had,

which,

if you just take out the word trans

and you say, in America, we are going to give very powerful hormones and hormone-altering drugs to teenagers or even younger, then the left would say that's not right.

No, no, no, no.

That's why we have an FDA.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's just big fauna doing this.

No, no.

But the problem with DEI

is it always excludes people from rational thought.

They always make exceptions.

We saw that during the COVID demonstrations when people were telling us you have to have two masks, you have to social distance.

But it's okay if you want to go out there 30,000 to 40,000 strong and touch each other and yell and scream if you're on the right side of history by supporting George Floyd,

the agenda.

And so the same thing with DEI.

It's, well,

we're just going to withhold all criticism of these drugs and these radical surgeries because it's a hot-button issue.

And when I say hot and button, the left is even weirder because there are always 30, 70 issues.

Most people don't agree with that.

And then what was also strange about it is that

it was pretty clear-cut.

These were kids praying, and they were being helped by adults and older kids, and they were in a church, and this guy was out shooting through the windows, cowardly fashion, and yet,

when you looked at Mayor Fry in Minneapolis or Gavin Newsom, almost their first reaction was to worry about whether this stone cold-blooded killer would be fairly...

Remember Jake Tapper said, I got to get his pronouns right.

No, you don't have to get his...

He's a killer.

He's a creep.

He's a monster.

He's satanic.

You don't have to worry about anything.

You can call him anything you want.

What you need to worry about are the poor innocents that were killed and maimed maybe for life by this satanic monster.

But I don't get this.

It's almost like they don't care about people in the flesh, but they care about them in the abstract.

They're always looking for a victim.

It's always Muhammad Khalil.

Forget that he's an illegal alien.

Forget that he is anti-Semite.

Forget he won't, he's incapable of criticizing Hamas.

It's always a Breco Garcia, a wife beater,

a

human trafficker at M13.

He is the cause to live.

And then everything is suspicious.

Well, he's a person of color, and he's a result of a xenophobic racist president, and we're going to go down to El Salvador like 19th-century Yankee imperialists, and we're going to tell the El Salvadoran government, we have more rights to him than you do, tinpot dictator, because he's an illegal alien in the United States, and that Trump's being a citizen in your country.

And the same thing with Juicy Smollett.

He was a creepy, creepy person, and they iconicized him.

They just made him into this poor little guy.

And we could say the same thing about Luigi Mangioni.

He got the Sarnoff treatment.

Remember Sarnoff, the handsome guy on Rolling Stone?

Taylor Rins had that gushing interview with Luigi Mangioni, the assassin killed Brian Thompson, the CEO, who the middle-class guy worked his way up.

So they always side with the 30% of the crazy people, and they always are looking for a victim, no matter how atrocious that victim is, of supposedly white, oppressive, nativist, racist, sexist views.

And when they find that victim, they're willing to suspend all of the traditional DEI orthodoxy.

So here you you have a guy beats up his now wife and the feminists don't say anything.

You know, not one word.

Not one peep.

And then when you had

the same thing with Khalil, he got involved in all these anti-Semitic.

He was a spokesman for Divest in Colombia and not one word about his ethnic chauvinism.

It's really weird about these people.

They have no moral bearings at all.

And Trump has that unique ability to bring the worst out in them.

They just hate him so much that they don't make any pretense of not being who they are.

And the idea that these people were running the country for four years.

And you got a little taste of the border as being

flooded now because of all the deport, of the million and a half self-deportees.

The fence isn't finished yet, and the bill augmenting the

border patrol is not enacted yet, and they're trying to get across en masse now.

And you can see that this is a ⁇ I hope that Republicans have a good commercial because this is exactly what will happen if they win the House and take over the House or if they win the 28 election.

They're going to open that border wipe and all these Obrego-Garcia people are going to be back.

And that's what they want.

They want as long as they don't go to Martha's Vineyard, or they don't go up into Gavin Newsom's neighborhood, or they stay away from Mayor Johnson's Chicago mansion, they're fine with everybody else's collateral damage.

Hey, Victor, I just wanted to add one other thing regarding

thoughts and prayers: the fact that Western civilization is based on Christianity and

Judeo-Christianity, and the thought that prayer, which is central to religious practice and worship, is something that is anathema to the Democrat Party in America and and their equivalence in Eastern Europe or Europe, by the way, is, I don't think it's shocking anymore, but it's extremely discouraging.

And I don't know how a Democratic Party becomes a party that's representative of America.

And even those who don't attend church still believe in that.

Most people still do believe and how they are, I don't know,

clutchers and the like.

It's very troubling.

Well, Victor, I want to get to General Milley, one of your favorite people.

And

I want to read a little something before that about something important that Brooke Rollins has done.

But first, I want to let our listeners know about

how you often discuss how great civilizations fall when they debase their currency.

Well, Donald Trump's warning about economic turbulence ahead sounds remarkably similar to your historical analysis.

Our friends at American Alternative Assets Assets have discovered something fascinating.

Trump's been using

a specific IRS strategy to protect wealth during times of upheaval.

It's the same approach the Romans wish they had when their denarius collapse.

When nations accumulate $36 trillion in debt, currency crises flow, and that's why so many of the world's successful investors are advocating for gold.

The 2025 Wealth Protection Guide reveals how ordinary Americans can use Donald Trump's IRS strategy to safeguard their retirement before these patterns play out again.

Call 888-615-8047 or visit victorlovesgold.com for your free guide.

That's 888-615-8047.

As you always say, Victor, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

And we thank the good people at American Alternative Assets for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen show.

Victor, before we get to General Millie,

I've mentioned before on our podcast this terrific website, UN1, that covers issues of the West and

ranchers, farmers, etc.

Today, or I should say yesterday, I think that would be Friday the 29th,

the reporter, the architect of that Unwan website, has been writing a lot about how PG ⁇ E out in California has shut off water to farmers in the Potter Valley, the irrigation water that they needed just before the harvest was going to happen.

And she's been writing about this.

And Brooke Rollins, the

agriculture secretary for the Trump administration, just wrote today, insane,

I'm on it, which is not the first time that she has stepped up to push back against the insanity of the regulators against ranchers and farmers in the West.

So I just wanted to make note of that.

Yeah, the problem is that we have two huge water projects.

We have the Depression-era Central Valley Project, and that's a federal entity

that came in and built reservoirs in the north and started the

system of transference.

And JFK came in and dedicated to BFSIS, the huge San Luis Reservoir.

I know you passed it, Pacheco Pass, when you're in California, which, by the way, I went by it yesterday.

It's only about 60% full.

And then we have the California Water Project.

That was the state's effort to do the California Aqueduct and get more water down to Los Angeles and coastal communities and the San Joaquin Valley.

And now they've kind of merged.

But what that entails is the state is cutting off water

to these farmers in this Northern California community.

And they're doing it all.

I mean, if you look at the West Side farmers in California, and you look at the percentage of their water contracted allotments, it's only about 20 or 10 percent.

This was an average year, it was not a drought year.

And yet, when you look at the reservoirs like San Luis, which is the pressure gauge on the whole aqueduct,

they fill this 3 million acre-foot reservoir up.

Now, San Jose taps into it.

A lot of other coastal communities rely on it.

It's the one that regulates the aqueduct flow over the grapevine in the LA Basin.

But my point is,

they're letting water out into the delta before it gets into the aqueduct.

And that's from the Sacramento and to a lesser extent in the San Joaquin River.

And why are they doing this?

They're doing it as

you know, you can't talk to them.

They will tell you that the 20 or 30 Bay Area communities that dump their nitrogen water into the delta have no effect on the delta smell aeration and oxygen level.

They will tell you that evasive species like these striped bass species are not eating them.

It's only because they're not getting enough water from Northern California to replenish the oxygen levels because these evil farmers are using their ancient water rights going back 60, 70 or more years.

And they're evil because they're planting almonds and there's a million and a half acres of almonds and they're ranching and we don't need meat, we don't need almond.

So they don't know anything about farming and it's a political decision.

And 1% of the population are farmers and ranchers.

So it's a very small community that feeds all of us.

And they figure that, you know, if you have a PhD in,

I don't know,

environmental studies, that's a studies course, then you're a PhD out of Berkeley or Santa Cruz Cruz or somewhere, and then you work for the state as a biologist or

a hydrologist, and then you determine by fiat that you think, yeah, you know, we don't want to give these people, we'll just take the water from.

That's how they think.

And they never make, it's never a cost-benefit analysis.

They never think, if we do this,

then this amount of land will go, oh, if we, but they think like this instead, if we do this,

And this amount of land goes out, let's say, on the west side, oh, we can put thousands of acres of solar panels and we can generate electricity that we don't really need in a day, and we have no way of storing it, so we'll just do it anyway.

We'll take some of the best farmland in the world out of production as the population keeps continuing to grow.

The most dangerous person in America is a

PhD, JD,

MBA

that lives in the bi-coastal corridors,

came out of an elite university and works in a regulatory agency.

They are dangerous people

because there's no connection with the productive classes.

They went to undergraduate, they went straight to graduate school, they got all these accolades, they were A students, they got this fellowship, they got this resume, they go to this agency, and they love the idea that they can go out and tell some guy that's covered with dirt and is pickup and is ranching, or they go go out to some guy on the west side or some guy near the Sierras and say, this is what you're going to do.

And I'm a PhD and I'm going to tell you to do this.

And I have the full resources of the state of California behind me.

So if you want to sue us, go ahead.

But we have unlimited legal services and you don't.

And we're judge, jury, and executive.

That's how the whole attitude.

I've dealt with them before.

And I know them from both ends, both from going to school for nine years on the coast and being at the Stanford campus for 20 years and then on the other end as a farmer.

And

it's just a war of different lifestyles and mindsets.

On the one hand, it's rugged individualism and I'm going to get up every morning with no idea how much money I'm going to make, if any, and I'm going to fight labor problems, environmental problems, the weather, the crops, everything.

And the other side is, well,

I woke up today and I'm looking at my 401k and my guaranteed salary and my state car, and I think I'll just, you know, get it in and just drive down over the Delta.

Maybe I'll go down to the west side and check things out.

There's no risk, there's no anything.

The only time I've ever seen them panic is when you have these occasional state bankruptcies.

91, 92, where the state spent so much money and there wasn't enough there, and then they're talking about layoffs.

Then they go to, they cry to, this is like you're the Antichrist if you mention layoffs.

That's the dangerous thing, everybody, about government, federal and state.

When you get these huge numbers of people

that are not accountable and they have legislative, executive, and judicial power and one agency, one person, and they have unlimited, they go after people, if nothing else, to show who's boss.

It's an ego thing.

And they do not like the

they don't like the traditional conservative self-employed person.

We just don't like them.

He's antithetical to everything

they value.

Well, Victor, again, that's UN1,

the website.

I suggest folks check it out, even if you're not on the West Coast, you're not a rural person, that there are a great many issues of importance to America that

are aloof to many of us on the East Coast.

Water, we've talked about this so many times.

You know, we turn on taps here.

We don't think water is an issue, but water is an issue and a great issue for much of the country.

Well, when we come back, Victor, from these important messages, we're going to talk about your favorite person, General Milley.

We'll be right back.

If you're a homeowner, you need to listen to this.

In today's AI and cyber world, scammers are stealing your home titles and your equity is the target.

Here's how it works.

Criminals forge your signature on one document, use a fake notary stamp, pay a small fee with your county and just like that, your home title has been transferred out of your name.

Then they take out loans using your equity and even sell your property and you won't even know what's happened until you get a collection or foreclosure notice.

So when was the last time you checked on your home title?

If your answer is never, you need to do something about it right now.

And that's why we've partnered with Home Title Lock so you can find out today if you're already a victim.

Go to home titlelock.com slash Victor to get a free title history report and a free trial of their million dollar triple lock protection.

That's 24-7 monitoring of your title, urgent alerts to any changes.

And if fraud does happen, they'll spend up to $1 million to fix it.

Please, please don't be a victim.

Protect your equity today.

That's home, titlelock.com/slash victor.

So, you just got back from summer vacation.

Maybe you might have even had to book two rooms because of your snoring.

Some vacation, huh?

Snoring can be an underlying cause of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and even memory loss.

Here is my advice.

If you want every night to be a true vacation, you need to get yourself Zipa.

That's happy Z spelled backwards.

Zipa is a doctor-designed mouthpiece that not only moves your jaw forward, but is also the only device with a patented tongue seat belt to keep your airways open and the snoring away.

The snoring can stop as soon as the first night.

Zipa was proven in a 600-patient clinical trial and sold over half a million units.

From now until the end of October, show your family you actually care by purchasing a limited edition Pink Zipa.

Not only will you save $10,

but Zipa is on a mission to raise $50,000 for breast cancer research and they will donate another $10,000 to the Susan G.

Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Go to ZYPPAH.com and use the code PINK or text VICTOR to 511-511.

Put your snoring on a permanent vacation and help a worthy cause with the snoring device we trust by visiting zyppah.com and use the code PINK or text Victor to 511-511.

Remember, Zipa is happy Z spelled backwards.

Text fees may apply and we'd like to thank Zipa for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show.

We are back with the Victor Davis-Hansen Show recording on Saturday the 30th.

This episode is up on Tuesday, September 2nd.

Victor, there was an article in Just the News headline, Millie Crafted Biden Administration's Fiction that Afghanistan Fell in Just 11 Days.

I think one of the points here, in general, Victor, is we

thought there were aloof generals and Biden was just improvising this whole withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Everyone was shocked.

Joe did it.

It's Joe's fault.

It's only his fingerprints on things.

But according to this article in Just the News, it's not the case.

General Milley was quite involved in spinning the story of the...

It all collapsed in 11 days.

Well, it didn't collapse in 11 days.

Anyway, Victor, your thoughts on this?

They're kind of in the Fauci position.

I mean, whatever Fauci says about he has no involvement, to take this example, with the Wuhan lab and the birth of COVID-19, the SARS virus, we know from his own written emails with Peter Dasick, but especially Francis Collins, etc., that they were terrified that their fingerprints were on transference of instrumentation, personnel, and money to this virus.

And the same thing is true of Milley.

We know from what his own record, he and the other hierarchy of the U.S.

Army in particular, said to us

all during June and July when some reporting said that

they feared there were large fissures in the American presence

and the Taliban was gaining strength and they were not doing what Trump did.

Trump basically wanted to get down to about 5,000 people and make Fortress Bagram.

You know what I mean?

A big air base that was secure, 70 miles or so

from Kabul, biggest air base in Central Asia.

He could control, he could look at Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, everything.

And that was his idea.

And it would be supplied by air, and he was going to cut a deal with the Taliban.

They didn't want to do that.

So they told us in May, June, and July that, oh, there's 350,000 troops, oh, this.

And they knew that was not true.

They knew that it was a paper tiger like the South Vietnamese Arbin in 1975.

And then

when it collapsed as everybody knew it would and they knew it would,

then they either silently leaked and said Biden did it.

And we know that Biden had issued an order or at least had spoken and said that he wanted everybody out

by

September 11th, and that was going to coincide in 2020 with the 9-11 20th anniversary and in addition to that the 20th anniversary a little later, of the entrance into Afghanistan under George Bush.

So Biden was going to say, well, you know, Bush got us in here 20 years ago, and I'm the one that got us out.

And Bush, you know, and 9-11 happened on his watch, and on my watch, 20 years later, on the same day,

we had an honorable withdrawal from Afghanistan.

That was what he wanted to do, and have a big parade.

And it didn't work because the Taliban sized Biden and they sized the Army and the military up.

And they said, you know what?

These guys may have a pride flag, they may have a gender studies course, they may have George Floyd murals, but they want out more than anything and we don't even have to cut a deal with them.

We were willing to cut a deal with them because they thought that Trump said he was going to bomb them and he gave them the personal addresses of the Taliban kingpin.

He said, if you don't...

If you kill Americans, I'm going to bomb this, this, this, and gave them the addresses of their homes, reportedly.

So they were not afraid.

There was no deterrence.

And they lied to us and said it was going to be orderly.

And then during the whole debacle, Millie said it was a righteous strike.

Remember that when they hit the carload of innocent civilians and killed them?

Oh, this is a righteous strike.

And then the officer that was in charge of the airlift said that they had Mediterranean-sensitive food on the plane, and when they got home, they would be met with culturally appropriate

everything.

And

there was no emphasis on putting the Marines in a very dangerous place.

Everything they said was untrue and it was all geared to the perception that this administration was a multicultural, left-wing, radical administration and these generals had to toe the line if they wanted to A keep their top echelons and B

transition in the revolving door when they retire as they all do and go into the defense contracting lobbying business.

And you know, Lloyd Austin,

this was just a little side venture until he was going to go three or four years later, three years later to Raytheon or wherever he came from.

So that's where it was.

And that they had to do that.

If there were things that were embarrassing, like going before Congress and recommending that you take a look at Professor Kendi's work as anti-racism, then they were willing to say that.

They were willing to get up there and say there was a white cabal or white conspiracy in the ranks that they were going to investigate in the wake of George Floyd.

So

I don't want to be too harsh.

I have the utmost respect for the military, but

there's something wrong about a lot of these generals that are Washington Beltway creatures, and they tend to be very left-wing and they they feel they're exempt from criticism and they feel they're exempt from statutes.

So we've talked on this broadcast before.

It's very clear that Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice says they're not supposed to

attack the Commander-in-Chief.

They didn't say a word about Biden being senile.

They didn't say a word about Biden destroying deterrence.

They didn't say a word about looking at his watch when the bodies came home.

But boy, during Trump, they called him a fascist.

They called him Mussolini.

They called him a liar.

They called him analogous to the Nazis on the beach at Normandy.

They called him analogous to the people who oversaw the Holocaust.

They said horrible things about the commander-in-chief, and their attitude was, go ahead and see if you're going to prosecute me under that.

Even though I'm retired, I know that I'm subject to the statutes, but you're not going to do it.

And that was their attitude.

A counterpoint to the Biden looking at his watch, Riktor, is that Donald Trump has marked the fourth anniversary of the attack at Abbey Gate.

I'm again recommending websites people should check out on occasion.

One is the White House website because the President's, the executive orders and the proclamations

are well written and

heartfelt.

And every one of the 13 who were slain that day are mentioned by name and are not going to be forgotten.

by this journey.

It was all preventable.

It was preventable.

They could have been out there to the degree they should have had a corridor.

I don't know why they didn't just take everybody out from Bagram and have armed convoys up to a secure base and just use that for the evacuation.

But anybody who looked at that thing and saw the the inability to to secure that and Afghans grabbing onto the wheels and then you thought, wow, there's hundreds of these Afghans and we have no idea if they're Taliban, if they're antithetical.

And there was no successful or even half-hearted attempt to go through everybody and see who was audited and reliable and it helped us as a translator or somebody, and did they get out first?

And who is on those planes that is a terrorist or means us harm?

It was just a free-for-all, Lucha Libre.

Just, get on, we're getting out of here, man.

We're getting out of here by sunset.

Get out, let's go.

Bang, bang.

We abandoned,

I don't know, if a sergeant, you know, goes on

a training patrol in the Sierra Nevada and some kind of

deployment in training and he loses a clip to his M4 or something,

he will be sighted.

If a general leaves

$50 billion in munitions and airplanes and helicopters and Humvees, nothing will happen to him.

Nothing.

$50 billion worth.

And

a $300 million

retrofitted air base and a brand new billion dollar embassy.

And that's what the Taliban inherited.

And all that equipment has been dispersed.

We know it's being dispersed all over the Middle East.

And we know that the Bagram was just refitted and the embassy was brand new.

And

you spent

$80 million on a gender studies program.

As I said before, at least the British imperialists with the pith helmets and all that,

when they got rid of Souti in India, at least

when they were imperialistic and tried to force their culture down the throats, the culture was redeeming in some ways because it was personal freedom and constitutional government, rule of law, and they backed it up.

We pushed a culture down on their throat that was trans, gender studies, and then we were weak in the same process.

So the Taliban said,

these people are decadent and they're weak, and they didn't respect us.

And so, I don't know.

It's weird that, you know, they all talk about settlers and colonialism and all that.

And the most imperialist group in America is the hard-left diplomatic corps and the NGOs.

They go over to these traditional Islamic societies or in Africa, and then they try to push this DEI down their throats and all of this postmodern trans stuff and gay stuff and feminist stuff.

And yet they say,

we're not culturally appropriating them.

We don't do this.

But you are.

You're just trying to say, our system is the only system and we're going to put it down your throat.

Well, Victor, I want to say something to our many new listeners and viewers about our friends at besthotgrill.com.

Football is back, so is tailgating, and whether it's a Friday night lights, Saturday college, or pro-Sundays, Solayer, Air tailgate infrared grills set up fast, heat up quickly, only three minutes to searing hot temperatures, just like the big backyard Sol Airs.

A Sol Air grill will make you the master of the tailgate with the juiciest, most flavorful food in the parking lot, and the fast grilling times leave you more time to enjoy the pregame festivities.

They also cool down fast so that you won't miss a minute of the game.

The USA-made SolAir, anywhere, everywhere, and all about.

Infrared grills are portable and perfect for any grilling on the go, from picnics to camping, RVs to boating, but especially tailgating.

Amaze your tailgating, friends, with the great food you grill with your SolAir infrared grill and learn more about these,

excuse me, learn more about these fantastic grills and SolAir's Try Before You Buy demo rental program at bestotgrill.com.

That's bestthotgrill.com, best hotgrill.com, and we thank the good people

from SolAir for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hanson Show.

It's a beautiful Saturday here in Connecticut, Victor.

This is the perfect tailgating

kind of day, and I hope people are enjoying themselves doing such.

We're going to get your take on a few more things, Victor.

But first, how about

you I'm sure you saw the Donald Trump nixed the Secret Service detail for Kamala Harris.

I guess she will not have the protection on her 107-day book tour.

Yeah, I mean, that was not, I don't understand the coverage of that because vice presidents are not really, don't they just get, they get a temporary window, like Mike Pence, they don't get, you know, they don't, they're not like

a president.

They don't get, and so I think her window was about up.

So it wasn't that he canceled it, he just didn't renew it.

And he didn't renew it because she was going on this book tour

and she's very wealthy and you know she went through had a billion and a half dollars she went through and

she owes 15 million to the DNC for campaign so I I think he just thought that she could do what he did when he and get you know security detail or something

and it seems logical to me and you know all these things that we we've witnessed the last six months when he cut the security for John Bolton.

I don't I have to be be careful what I say, but from the evidence that has been leaked to the New York Times,

it seems that John Bolton was, as the other leaks suggested, he was sending material for his notes, for his book, and that material was somehow picked up by a foreign intelligence service.

It wasn't secure.

And apparently the crux is whether that material was classified or not.

And so when he was stripped his special detail, the world went crazy and said, oh wow, you can't do that to John Bolton, the Iranians.

But actually, at that time, they must have known.

One of the reasons they probably stripped his security is they felt that he had been transmitting confidential dash classified information to friends or family to enhance his own career, whether that career was defined by books or research or articles or op-eds or his constant appearance on MSNBC or CNN, and they just said we're not going to subsidize this.

Well, Victor, one other thing before we

get your thoughts.

A big topic we want to set some time aside for today is to talk about the Obama holder, a political reunion.

So we're going to get to that.

But bouncing off the first topic, the shooting at the school in Minnesota and the Democrat reaction to that.

It's funny, not funny, but last night I was watching Fox and Tom Holman was on and he was talking about ICE's efforts to find these

over 300,000 children missing from the Biden-era flooding of illegals into America.

And ICE has found over 20,000 of them so far,

which is terrific.

It's also heartbreaking that there are that many children lost.

God only knows what kind kind of horror some of these children are.

The left's not worried about it because they've idolized a human trafficker, Albrego Garcia.

He was pulled over in Tennessee, speeding and going, weaving in and out of his lane.

And

when the Tennessee patrolman called back, he got it on high to let him go.

But he did say that there was a hold on this person because he was a known M13 gang member.

But he was a human trafficker.

The car he was driving and the vehicle he was driving was associated with a human trafficker.

So the left didn't get angry at that.

And they never said a word during the Biden administration about all the, quote, children.

Nancy Pelosi, who can't finish a sentence without saying, for the children, she didn't mention it at all.

And

the left, everybody should realize that when you look at all these examples of hypocrisy, they don't see it that way.

Their view is simply, we are morally superior to you, Neanderthals, and we are smarter, and we are better credentialed, and we are more moral.

And therefore, we can use any means necessary for our exalted ends.

And if that means being inconsistent or not caring about, you know, children because it's the more important moral is to make the case that Donald Trump is evil.

And evil people,

That narrative is incompatible with the idea that he's trying to help find children that the noble, saintly Joe Biden allowed to be trafficked.

And so that doesn't fit the narrative.

I'm sorry, but we're not going to talk about the children that are missing under the Biden administration.

We're just not going to talk about it.

But we are going to talk about Donald Trump.

And we saw that with the so-called cages.

Remember that Obama had made these detention centers during his

eight years and suddenly they became the...

I did an NPR and all of it.

I never did an NPR after that.

I did an NPR where I was trying to explain that these detentions at facilities were inaugurated during the Obama.

And they did one of the most unethical things that a journalist should never do.

And that is after the

invited guest gets on to editorialize and attack him.

And that's what the reporter did.

And they called me up, the host,

and said, I'm sorry that didn't go well.

And I said, you should be ashamed of yourself.

You do not allow reporters to cowardly not ask a guest a question or disagree with them.

And then, as soon as the segment is over, then he post facto attacks them and they can't reply back.

And that's what you've done.

And I said, I'll never be on your show again.

Any NPR.

Right.

And so.

I think the world would be shocked if they heard you on NPR now.

I used to go, you know, there was a guy named Conan O'Brien.

Yeah.

Talk of the nation.

Remember him?

He's a very nice guy.

He was a man of the left, but I liked him.

And I would go on there maybe once a month.

And every time I had a book, I love Brian Lamb.

I did, you know,

all of his long interviews on C-SPAN.

He created C-SPAN.

He was a professional.

I had no problem with people who might have been center-left as long as they were professional.

And that early first generation of people on NPR were not bad, but then it just got taken over by Jacobins.

And when Mr.

Berliner said that

the 87 people in the NPR newsroom were all Democrats who had leftists, They made no pretense.

And then they had that clownish woman who became the head of the PBS, and she just kept saying they were disinterested.

There was no evidence that they were biased.

So it's...

Our generation.

You know, this is really weird.

The baby boomers are always bragging about, you know, we were the

civil rights people.

They weren't.

That was an earlier generation.

This generation is going to have so much to answer for, from the homeless thing to DEI to racial tensions to postmodernism to the destruction of the universities.

I'm 71 and I'm at the middle of the baby boomers.

But the people five years ahead of me and five years behind me and at my age,

if you look at the ledger, it's pretty negative.

It really is.

There's a lot to atone for.

We live in a world of posing, right?

So I'm fighting something by putting some sign

on my lawn as opposed to actually doing something.

You like these videos.

This house doesn't

stand for racism.

I like these videos you see every once in a while, someone knocking on the door.

Okay, yo, you want to help the homeless?

Or illegals.

Well, I got three here in the car, so they're ready to

take them in.

I love that Martha's Vineyard, where they...

They bust the illegals into Martha's Vineyard, and then

these kind of Karen women and their puff jackets come and they have all these boxes of their former designer clothes, you know, Abercrombie and Fitch hand-me-downs, and they put them neatly in a box, and then they hand them to them and they point to a bus and say,

Manhattan is awaiting you.

Hit the road, Jose.

Okay, well, Victor, we're going to talk about Obama, Holder, and maybe tariffs.

Tariffs, too, when we come back from these final important messages.

If you're like me, you have a lot of product on your bathroom counter.

Well, I have found the secret serum, and it's vibrant Super C Serum.

The ingredients in this one bottle can replace your day creams, eye creams, night creams, neck creams, wrinkle creams, and even dark spot reducers.

Made in the USA with the highest quality ingredients, including vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, vitamin B5, and vitamin E, Super C Serum delivers noticeable results.

Simplify your skincare routine, get a healthier complexion, and minimize wrinkles and age spots with Vibrance.

I just began using Super C Serum last week and I love it.

My skin feels so much better, soft, moist, and fresh.

And by the way, it smells beautiful like the orange blossoms outside my kitchen door.

Give it a try and you'll love it too.

And if you don't find it better than your current skincare routine, you'll get a full refund.

Go to vibrance.com/slash Victor to save up to 37%

off and free shipping.

That's Vibrance.

V-I-B-R-I-A-N-C-E.

Vibrance.com slash Victor.

And we'd like to thank Vibrance for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show.

We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show recording on Saturday, the 30th of August, as we head into here,

excuse me, Labor Day weekend.

Of course, when this comes out, it will have been over, but so be it.

Anyway, Victor, let's talk about, get your take on, here's a headline,

and I'm not sure of the source.

Obama and Holder mobilized Democrats against

GOP redistricting.

They're calling it an existential threat to our democracy.

Former President Barack Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder, released a video Thursday calling on supporters to back the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, NDRC, warning that Republican-led redistricting efforts in states such as Texas, Florida, and Ohio threatened to undermine minority voting power and reshape congressional control ahead of the 2026 elections, et cetera, et cetera.

Projection.

Victor, your thoughts.

Well, they know that if they look at the 50 states and they look at the popular vote in the last election, both for president and for senatorial statewide elections, they know, depending on the state, that the Republicans in these districts of roughly 750,000 people, they are about 15 to 20 congressional seats short of what their their national vote would have justified if, in a perfect world, congressional seats reflected the actual population breakdown as far as political Republican and Democrats.

Okay, they know that.

So why are they doing this?

Because there are already 15 to 20 seats and in places like New York and Illinois, they're maxed out.

So they want to take this thing.

They can't do any more in Massachusetts.

They've got zero Republicans, but they think they can get maybe five seats, mostly in California.

They can go from nine out of 52 seats down to four Republicans.

But it's also predicated on that the Republicans won't react, that they will just say, well,

I don't like this political redistricting, because they know that if the Republicans react and they would do what the Democrats are doing and what the Texas people are doing, then they have the power to gain about 20 seats in redistricting, and they could do it before the midterm.

So they're playing with fire, but it's predicated on the idea that we're morally superior, so you wouldn't dare use the tactics that we're using.

And then you get into this Obama phenomenon where he comes out, he flies out of his states, his four states, with his private plane, and then he weighs in on things.

And

it reminds me of the filibuster when he said it was a racist relic.

Remember that?

They had the majority, and they were filibustering.

I have a pin, I have a phone.

I have a phone, I have a pin.

I can just, you know, that started the whole executive order rationalization.

He did it.

And then

he said that the filibuster was a racist relic.

And then people said, well, wait a minute.

When you were in the minority, you tried to filibuster Alito.

You tried to stop his nomination vote.

It wasn't racist then, was it?

And so, and then Eric Colder, remember where he said that, oh, Jeff Cheson just too close to Donald Trump.

Pam Bondi is there's no firewall.

As soon as I heard that, I thought,

well, R.F.K.

was the brother of JFK, and he was attorney general and president.

And then we remember Eric Colder said, I'm the president's wingman, wingman.

And then when they put Bannon and Navarro in jail for refusing a congressional subpoena, and Eric Colder was the first attorney general in history to be held in contempt over Fast and Furious, and

they sent him a summons.

He just said, I'm not going to come.

No way.

Just like Merrick Garland.

No way.

And then when the January 6th thing came out, every day Eric Holder, insurrectionists, treachery, treason, all the whole thing, both of them.

And

I just don't think anybody listens to either one of them, especially Obama.

That's not his name, by the way, Victor.

He comes out in the video.

He doesn't say Barack Obama.

He says Barack.

He is just a one-word person, a one-day person now.

Maybe he's like Beyonce.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe that's what it's going to be now.

But he didn't say, my name is Barry.

I'm Barry Sotero.

I'm Barry Sotero.

I've been in Indonesia.

No, he didn't say any of that.

But he's losing his capital the longer his

presidency fades.

I think most people realize that all this division that we have on racial lines and the radicalization of the Democratic Party, it didn't start under Jimmy Carter.

It did not start under Reagan, George H.W.

Even George W.

Bush, they hated it.

It didn't start.

It didn't even start under Clinton, as Machiavellian as Clinton.

It started under Obama.

And he was the one that said, Traybon is the kid that looks like me, son I never had.

He's the one that said, you know, everybody knows that police pull people over for no reason, the Beer Summit.

Michelle, downright mean country, never been proud, that whole stuff.

And then all the rappers in the White House with their ankle braces going off.

He was the one.

Remember what was his name?

Love?

The guy that was the bagman

up for Obama?

That weirdo in a weird way.

I forgot about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He just introduced

racialization and weaponized it.

And we saw that in all all of those things that came up, like the Trayvon Martin.

Well,

that's the whole point of this redistricting thing.

It's all on

race scratches.

I'll tell you the Republicans, be careful because this is what they're going to do.

They're going to redistrict every

Democratic-majority purple state, and they're going to pick effective Republican Congress people,

and they're going to put them in a new district with their rivals, Republicans, and they were going to cut in half the number.

And these districts are going to look like spaghetti noodles.

And then when the Republicans retaliate, they're going to say, you're racist because you're eliminating gerrymandered districts for race.

See, they don't believe that gerrymandering is bad.

They only believe it's bad when Republicans do it, but they think it's very good to create automatic racial districts.

The irony, again, as I said before, is that they have pretty much ensured ensured that there will never be a Barack Obama national candidate again.

And look at the black community and ask yourself, how many black senators are going to make it to the presidency?

Camilla Harris?

I don't think so.

You think that Jasmine Crockett, spouting all of that hatred and racial crap, is going to be a senator in Texas?

I don't think so.

So what is my point?

When you put people into racially gerrymandered districts that are hard left, they play to their base, and their rhetoric gets strident, strident, polarizing, off-putting, racist.

And then they emerge as a folk hero.

But then every time they try to go national or statewide, they can't win.

Where if you just made the districts 750,000 people under geographical concerns, then when you had black representatives, they would be polished and effective politicians.

They would know how to appeal to Hispanics, Asians, whites, everybody.

And they wouldn't

double down on reparations and race the race.

And they wouldn't have Al Sharpton pictures and fair, all that.

And

that's what the gerrymanding and the special districts do.

They radicalize minority candidates and they effectively make them impossible to be competitive on statewide races.

That's why everybody says, well, we've got to get the Senate.

We've got to make the Senate more diverse.

The Senate's a bunch of old white men.

Well, then, if you want to do that, get rid of the gerrymanding racial districts and have a farm team of effective politicians.

Never heard that before.

That's terrific.

Well, the only ones that make it are, you know, Corey Booker made it, but he didn't start out as a, he got into as a mayor, and

the guy in Maryland who's the governor, anybody who

bypassed years and repeated terms in the House that was a, you know, Al Green-like or Maxine Waters or those types of resumes,

that's just a suicidal path to higher office.

And nobody wants to vote for those people.

And I say no one, I'm not talking about white people.

I'm talking about everybody.

And Republicans, I don't think they care anymore.

I think they're willing to redistrict and just do it on a geographical basis and just say, you know what?

I don't really care.

You can call me a racist and we'll see.

Yeah.

This will be good for everybody not to appeal to their base.

Well, Victor, let's close out quick here with your final thoughts on the federal appeal court ruling that happened yesterday.

It ruled that Donald Trump's tariffs aren't legal under the current law.

It allowed the tariffs to continue to stay in effect, giving the Trump administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court.

I'm not exactly sure what court it was.

It was 7-4 a vote.

Yeah, it gives

allows the tariffs to remain in place through October 14th.

And it effectively said that the President's use of emergency powers was not constitutional.

I think what they're saying is that the President to set a tariff as a tariff needs congressional approval.

But in the legislation, there are exceptions on various things, like the president can issue an immediate tariff if a country is dumping and to protect a domestic

interest or company or corporation that's a victim of that dumping, or if a country is asymmetrical in their tariffs and is waging a trade war and is running up big surpluses.

So what they're saying is that when Donald Trump issued these executive orders, his legal team came back and then tried to fit those

executive orders into these various categories of exemption.

And I don't think they think the exemptions were legitimate because they were just saying he wants to go after India, he wants to do this, and then he makes up that they're dumping or they're asymmetrical and he uses the exemptive clause.

And that's what they're doing.

And he can't go to Congress and get a tariff because of the filibuster.

They will filibuster every single thing.

They will use what they call the racist filibuster, and they want to end it, but they do not want to end it if it's a weapon against Donald Trump.

Well, Victor,

we have a lot of new listeners and viewers

for the Victor Davis-Hanson show.

Tremendous amount of comments for every episode.

And I try to go through them.

I know the great Sammy Wink does

also.

And here's a comment from,

I'm pretty sure this is off of YouTube from David Hill, 1911.

He writes, and you were talking about this, I think, with Sammy the other day.

I'm a truck driver myself.

And while not every Indian truck driver I see, I imagine, is a total jackwagon, a lot of them I see out here on the roads just flying down the highways.

I just don't think they really respect our laws.

I mean, why would they if they got their CDI illegally and didn't have have to know English or pass any of the tests?

I know that's not every one of them, and I'm sure there's some great Indian drivers, but on the whole, when I look over and see someone with flip-flops on and his feet up on the dash, you can bet your bottom dollar nine times out of ten it's an Indian in the front seat.

Victor, that's thinking of this.

I drove,

I just got back Friday, yesterday, and I drove 440 miles

and I went on cross-country to San Joaquin Valley, where there's a lot of trucks that use Manning Avenue very fast.

And then I went along a total of four hours on I-5, and then I went through the 152, which is kind of dangerous, connecting to Gilroy, and then I went on the 101, and then I went on the 85, and then I went on the 280.

And I saw a lot of truck drivers.

And I'm not going to comment on their ethnic background, background, although statistically I think Indian truck drivers are about 40% of California truck drivers and 20% nationwide.

But the ethos, as I said, with Sammy is completely shocked.

And what do I mean by that?

I am

going down Pacheco

at a sharp turn at a very steep grade

and you're in the left lane and there's a whole line of trucks and suddenly a truck gives you no signal and it cuts into the left on a hairpin curve going straight downhill at 60-70 miles an hour.

And you're behind the second trailer, and it's weaving

like it's dancing.

It's scary, or that when you go around a corner and they're going at the same speed that you are, and they start,

they cannot hold that truck in that narrow lane, and they start to drift into your lane, and you have a wall on your left side.

And you have to make a decision: do I stop?

Do I slow down and get rear-ended?

I'm going 65,

or do I get skid into the wall, or do I just take my chances that I'll get bumped?

And then you look into the truck driver, because if you're in an SUV like I am, you can see,

and you look up,

and it's fascinating.

One out of every four or five of these guys either has a cell phone in his hands or he has a little holder and he's hitting things right during the driving.

And I don't know why the trucking industry doesn't self-police because everybody knows this goes on.

That the old idea that the middle lane in a three-way freeway was a temporary passing lane for the trucks in the right lane and the left lane was an automatic ticket is out the window.

You see people

just stay in the middle lane no matter what.

And then you see

people in the left lane use the left lane for a passing.

So when I,

this particular trip, I had to go down the 41 because I had to take a detour and I saw three trucks in a row.

You know, and they were like a phalanx, a Greek phalanx, three in a row.

And then you get on the I-5 and you're in a long wagon train of

cars with a speed limit of 70 miles an hour and you're going 55 to 45

and then you look out and you see see trucks just going in the left.

It's only two lanes each way, and they just go in the left lane and they pass and they stay there, maybe for three or four trucks.

A lot of them never signal.

They just move out.

And it's completely different than it was 10 or 15 years ago.

And no one talks about it.

Yeah, well, I agree with you.

I wonder if I said, I'm going to, I'm Victor, and I want to get a professional trucker's license, and I go into the DMV

and they show me the signs.

And I said, I can't, I don't know what they are.

I got one out of twelve.

And he asked me something, and I can't speak English.

Are they going to give Victor a license?

No.

They gave the license because what used to be a disadvantage of being an illegal alien is not.

And if you can say, I'll be very frank, if you can claim that you're not white, then somehow in the diversity, the DEI, equity, inclusion binary, you're on the right side of the oppressed ledger.

And everything, that's the worst thing about DEI.

It warps everything and it destroys merit.

Because I just bet you, if some guy came into California and his name was Jimmy Bob Smith, and he had an Oklahoma draw,

And he was a 30-year trucker, but he went into that test and he did not recognize one.

They'd say, Billy Bob or Jimmy Bob, you're out.

And so everybody knows it.

And

I don't understand, you know, I've never criticized the Trump administration gratuitously, but why in the world are we going to let in 600,000 Chinese students when almost every day

there is a story about active Chinese espionage, say, on the Stanford campus?

Today there's an article in the Wall Street Journal about the recruitment of students who spy for China.

And then when you look at their parades and you look at their aircraft, you look at their artillery, you look at their armor, you look at their Navy, it's all replicating the United States.

Everybody knows that.

And now with AI and robotics,

why would you let 600, why is Trump doing this?

Is it a bargaining tool for a grand trade deal?

I mean, they already have 300,000.

There's 1 million foreign students here of all different backgrounds.

And what we see in the Ivy League about the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel from people in the Middle East.

Why are we doing this?

Well, I asked you to keep your powder dry on that, Victor, because when we record our next program, that's going to be the lead topic to get your take on it.

Yeah.

I don't.

I don't.

It's really more than a head scratcher.

Hey, Victor, we've come to the end of the show, and I apologize to our listeners again for

vertigo, cold, and and a breakdown of my Wi-Fi early on.

I do want to thank listeners and viewers who subscribe to Civil Thoughts, which is the free weekly email newsletter I write every week for the Center for Civil Society.

You go to civilthoughts.com, sign up.

Every Friday, the email comes, 14 recommended readings.

I know you're going to like it.

We're not selling your name.

It's totally free.

CivilThoughts.com.

Again, Victor's website, The Blade of Perseus, VictorHanson.com.

Do subscribe there.

Hey, if you're on X, Victor's handle is at

V D Hansen.

If you're on Facebook, there's Victor Davis Hansen's, the Victor Davis Hansen Fan Club.

That's not anything affiliated formally with Victor, but great people.

I'm VDH's Morning Cup.

And check it out.

Sign up, follow.

Victor, you've been terrific, as ever.

Thanks, everyone, for listening and watching.

We'll be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show.

Bye-bye.

Thank you, everybody, for watching and listening.