Trump's Speech to Congress and Democratic Leadership

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Hello ladies, hello gentlemen. Welcome to the Victor Davis Hanson Show.
I'm Jack Fowler, the host. You're here to get wisdom from the aforementioned Victor Davis Hanson, who is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha Buskey Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College.
We are recording on Monday, March 10th. This particular episode is up on March 11th.
Victor's ate an apple a day. Victor's proving to us we'll keep the doctor away.
He should have had that apple five or six days ago. He's going to tell us a little later about, you know, I know many of you have missed the last two, what should have been the last two episodes.
Victor was a little under the weather, so he and the great Sammy Wink were not able to record the two most recent podcasts, which means we have yet to hear Victor's take on Donald Trump's incredible speech to Congress a week ago.

So we're going to get that.

We have Victor's take on the status of the Democrat Party, of Hakeem Jeffries, of Nicole

Wallace.

And Victor's got a great article.

I hope we have time for that on the fables related to the Ukraine-Russia war.

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We are back with the Victor Davis Hanson show.

Victor, give us a little explanation of why you've been playing hooky from this podcast. Well, I have to apologize.
I haven't missed one since we started three and a half years ago. I don't know what happened.
You know, I've been, I've had COVID a lot, but I had, it's very hard, you know, to go from a rural place to a rural place. So, from my farm to the Fresno airport to Dallas to a connection to Detroit and then two hours.
So, to get to Hillsdale, it usually takes me 12 or 14 hours. And it was a 40, I guess maybe 50.
I left it with 65 degrees and I got there, it was 12 degrees. So, I don't know.
That was my grandmother always told me, change of weather. But I did a lot of stuff.
You know, I had a book signing and lecture and a video.

Maybe that was it.

But anyway, I came back and I was up.

I think it was Wednesday morning.

I got up at 3.30 in the morning.

We took the shuttle at 4.45.

Got on the plane.

Got the SFO.

Picked up.

Did a whole day's work. Went to an eye doctor appointment, felt fine, went to a dinner, felt fine, all ready for my big conference that I have to host, the Military History Working Group on Friday.
I wake up Thursday, I thought I was dead, really did. I had 102 temperature, and pretty much I've been the same there all day, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
And today, Monday, still sick. But at least I can sit up.
And my wife was very ill. She's got it.
and I got one of those little kits, you know, the kind that say COVID, influenza A, influenza B, it's influenza A. I didn't, somebody's going to say, well, do you get a vaccination? No, I used to get them every year and every year I'd get a flu vaccination.
I get the flu. So, this last four years, I haven't got one.
Usually, if I get the flu or something like it or a bad cold, it's two or three days of hell and then maybe a week of being tired. But I've been in bed more debilitated with this than I was with the acute phases of COVID for some reason.
It just knocked me out. And I think the biggest problem is your eyes.
You move them sideways and just the muscles are achy. Anyway, I'll try my best today.
Well, your worst is better than everyone else's best. So, Victor, I was in a city.
Meeting an apple. I know, I know.
Pierre'm Pierre Polivet. Polivet? Who is he? Polivet.
Polivet. Sorry.
Pierre Polivet. I'm eating my apple.
Bonjour, doctor. So a week ago, Tuesday, I was in New York City and I got back to Milford at nine at night at night, and I had not been able to see any of the much awaited Donald Trump speech.
And when I came in the house, my wife was watching forensic files. And I said, why are you why isn't the speech on? And she says, well, I started watching.
It was all this lunacy and craziness. It was so disturbing.
And so I changed the channel. I said, well, put it on.
And I thought I was going to catch the end of the speech. Actually, I think I was just getting to the middle of it.
There was another hour to go. The longest speech in history.
Oh, my gosh. It was terrific.
But I thought it was terrific. I thought it was really profound.
Anyway, Victor, who cares what I think? What was your take on that? Well, it was long, but I went back and looked at a lot of it. A lot of it was long because of the interruptions.
You know, it had just been staccato quick because, you know, there were all these things like Al Green taking his cane like a crazy septuagenarian, reminding me of Tiresias or somebody, just screaming and yelling and they had to escort him out and he was defiant. And then you had the women, the same dress in pink and then you had the bingo card, little paddle, you know, Elon's a thief.
Here's a guy who's a thief and he's trying to find out where a trillion dollars of thievery went. Not all thievery, but a lot of it apparently is.
And here the people who were protesting are the main beneficiaries of Act Blue, which is disintegrating before our eyes because everybody's fleeing it because they can't stand the scrutiny. It looks like the ActBlue, the Democratic PAC, was funding groups that were demonstrating outside of Teslas and stuff.
So, he had all of that disruption. And he said to them, there's nothing I can do, cure cancer.
Anything I do, you're not going to like. And so, he went through this counter revolution on every aspect of the border.
He had one great line. I thought the greatest was he said we were told that Biden couldn't secure the border because he needed new legislation.
It turned out all we needed new was a new president. And that's what he did.
He really put a lie to comprehensive immigration. That was always a lie that they use.
And I guess one thing when I listened to the speech, now you can see why they did it. There was no reason to open the borders.
There was no reason to welcome in 12 million. They did it intentionally.
They did it intentionally to change the demography.

Yes, I said that. And anybody who says it, they said, oh, you're part of the Tucker Carlson Great Replacement Theory.
No, you are. You're the demography is destiny and the new democratic majority.
And now you don't like it because nearly half of Hispanics voted for Trump. And now you're afraid that you're importing future Trump voters.

So it was very comprehensive. And I think everybody should hold on because this is not 2017.
He doesn't have Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis and my friend H.R. McMaster and Bolton and Anonymous and John Kelly around him and Bill Barr, nice people.
He's got, but those people felt it was their duty to be a filter and to reinterpret MAGA directives and to change them if they didn't like them. These groups are MAGA enhancers They come to Trump and say

Here's what we can do and to change them if they didn't like them. These groups are MAGA enhancers.

They come to Trump and say, here's what we can do on the border. Here's what we can do in defense.
Here's what we can do at DOJ. Here's what we can do with the FBI.
So it's a whole different world. And it's a revolution, a counter-revolution that's really picking up steam.
the only worries that I have

I wrote them in a long essay for the New Criterion

um revolution that's really picking up steam. The only worries that I have, that I wrote them in a long essay for the New Criterion, and I mentioned them before, is that we have never in the history of the United States been able to balance this type of deficits, but get a balanced budget with this much red ink by only cutting spending and cutting taxes to grow the economy.
It's never happened before. And the theory is that if they cut taxes and they give incentives, they'll get more investment.
But that's going to be a long-term process. It could take a year.
But if you total up no taxes on social security, no taxes on tips, no taxes on first responders, it's been mentioned. And then people saying there's no way that Elon Musk and Doge can get to $2 trillion, they'll be lucky to get to half a trillion.
We could get some still some big deficits. And then the same thing about the MAGA Jacksonian foreign policy.
We don't want to get into other people's business and start wars, but he inherited a very dangerous world. So, when Trump tells Gaza, you release the hostages or else, you release the hostages or else.
Release the hostages or else. Or he says to Putin, don't be bombing.
He said that in November. Do not escalate.
Putin, don't escalate. Or he says to Zelensky, we're going to cut you off.
We're going to cut you off. He's got to come through on those threats.
I think it would be better not to make them and just do stuff. I would just say, too, if you really want to deal, and when Trump means you better release all of the hostages or else, what he's really saying is that somebody's going to have to go into those tunnels and get them, right, or destroy all of the Hamas people.
And from what you read, there's only about 20% of the tunnels have been destroyed. So, that would be a gargantuan job and it would be antithetical to MAGA philosophy of getting inside a never-ending war in the Middle East again after Afghanistan and Iraq.
So, he's got a lot of obstacles he has to be very careful about. I think people around him have to realize that we are in a cultural counter-revolution and they're going to have to be very careful how they wage it because they have the media, they have the popular culture, they have all the institutions against them.

And he mentioned Canada and Mexico.

As long as he stays on this one principle of reciprocity, we don't like tariffs.

We do not issue tariffs against people who don't have tariffs on ours.

We want everybody to have the same tariffs that we do. That's a very liberal position.
Why are they angry? And the answer is, I guess, Canada, they've got this new Mark Kerry, this new leader, Jack, and he's taken over from Trudeau. There's been no elections.
These are supposedly how a parliamentary democracy works, by just appointing somebody to be the prime minister who was never elected. The only person who was elected as the head of the party was Trudeau.
So, in any case, he's really taken a hardcore anti-Trump position. It's going to square terrorists.
But my question to the Canadians is I agree with them that this 51 state stuff is silly. We don't want you or you don't want to, you don't want to be part of us and we don't want you to be part of us.
Why would we want a country the size of California that bring in two more left-wing Senate seats and 50, 50, because there's 41 million people, 52 House seats that would be all left-wing. And why would we want socialized medicine and all the stuff that you do? And your GDP is not commiserate with our GDP based on population.
And more importantly, your per capita income is lower than Mississippi, our lowest of the 50 states. So, we would like to tell Canada, I think Donald Trump doesn't need to get into the 50th Governor Trudeau.
I know he's trolling them. Just say, we respect your sovereignty, and we're not persecuting.
We're really not. But we're 36

trillion in debt. We're running almost a trillion dollars in aggregate trade deficits.
And you are our friends and you're running now over 50 billion, 53 billion dollar annual deficits. Mexico, 177

Why don't we just

Just go down to 10 billion

That's all you have to do? Well, you know, it's mostly you're buying our energy. No, it's not all that.
You won't let in our timber. You won't let in our butter, our agriculture.
We buy your electricity. We buy your gas.
We buy your oil. So, and then, you know, now they're starting to patrol the border some.
That's not a big issue. Donald Trump said it was one of the sticking points.
The real issue is twofold with Canada. Please treat us the way we treat you.
And let's just have a small trade surplus. And two, what happened to you, Canada? You used to have the third greatest Navy in the world.
And D-Day, you had your own beach, Juneau Beach. You had the first Canadian army.
It was a wonderful army. Why don't you, you're only spending 1.3% of your defense, your GDP on defense.
You've violated the essential NATO promise. You've done it for 11 years.
You've continuously not told the truth. Why don't you just spend 2%? In fact, you could coordinate with us.
Let's map up an Iron Dome protection for North America from missile defense.

You supply some of the natural resources, the energy, the bases.

We supply the hardware.

Or maybe if you don't want to build a navy, build 20 or 30 icebreakers.

And then you can patrol the Arctic Circle and keep the Chinese and the Russians out of our waters.

But instead, it's no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to spend that.
You guys love war. That's what you do.
We're not going to spend 2%. No way.
And then, you know, boulder, smoulder, big deal. And then you don't understand.
You're a big, big colossus. You don't know what it's like living next to the United States.
We have to run a trade surplus. That's their attitude.
And I know Donald Trump trolls them and they get angry at that. But when I listen to Trudeau or Carney or even Poliev, they don't get it.
This is a new world. And then we looked to Mexico.
They're making about $260 billion off of us. They got about $177 billion.
They're the largest trade surplus of our partners racking up, except for China now, Mexico. They are helping China get around all tariffs by having China send the stuff to them.
They assemble the car, the TV, the cell phone, the computer, and then they go through basically tax-free to the United States, and then they get raw fentanyl. They're killing 70 to 100,000 Americans a year from fentanyl, and it's not just our fault, as people say.
No, it's laced. They look at Ativan, Valium, opiates, metamphetamine, you name it.
And they put fentanyl in it. And they kill a lot of Americans.
And they make about $20 billion in smuggling fees and drug fees, the cartels. They make $177 billion in a trade surplus.
Yeah, How's that all made Mexico a better country?

It hasn't.

Yeah.

Why doesn't Ms. Scheinbaum, instead of trying to pose as the European-trained or American-trained Marxist, why doesn't she just look in the mirror and say, why did 12 million, why did

40 million people leave this country and go, Europe said that in the 19th century. We can't feed you.
You've got a better chance in the United States. They never say that.
Why did they leave Mexico? It's because of you guys. And you know why? Because it was a win, win, win, win from you.
You got rid of your indigenous poor people that you don't, either for racist reasons or you just don't care,

you wouldn't supply them with the social services they felt they could get in the United States. Two, you were counting on the $63 billion in remittances.
Three, you were creating a huge expatriate community that was lobbying for you, 50 consulates in the United States, or as Mr. Obrador said,

I think it's a beautiful thing to have 40 million ex-Mexican citizens in the United States. So, you had your expatriate community, and of course, it was a Frederick Jackson Turner safety valve so that people would not march on Mexico City, they'd go north.
So, it was a win-win-win, And when you add it all up, 63 billion in remittances.

And remember, a lot of it's subsidized by us because most people who send the money back to Mexico to their families are here illegally. And most of them are on some sort of local, state, or federal health, education, housing, food subsidy.
So, 63 million remittances, 177 in food trade surpluses, 20 billion in cartels, $260 billion every four years, a trillion. And they don't even want to discuss it.
And then Donald Trump, you know, he has to say Gulf of America and they get angry and angry and angry. But again, what is their, I don't understand their reasoning.
It's sort of like, well, we're poor. So we deserve to go through your border.
We deserve the remittances, 63 billion. You're lucky to have our people.
We can run up a trade surplus because you're wealthier than we are. Well, why are we wealthy? You have one of the most natural wealthy countries in the world.
We're wealthy and you're not because you've got a socialist economic system and a completely corrupt judiciary and law enforcement and political system. But they never talk about that.
And so, I never thought we'd be in an argument with Canada. But then when I started to look at the trade surpluses and the continuing failure to spend 2% on defense, and then some of the rhetoric that's been coming out of Trudeau, it was inevitable.
Well, Victor, this is the appropriate moment, I think, to talk about something big, and that's tariff wars. President Trump's new tariffs could shake up the economy in 2025.
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Victor, about the MAGA enhancer, which you mentioned earlier, I see today's New York Post, again, we're recording on Monday the 10th, front page article has this creep at Columbia, this Mahmoud Khali is getting his green card revoked, and he's a Hamas campus troublemaker instigator and then um separately uh donald trump's administration announced they're cutting 400 million dollars in aid to columbia university and barnard because of their dei and ongoing anti-semitism practices so i wonder i wonder if this would have happened in the Trump administration. Would someone have taken this? No, it wouldn't.
No. They would have never gotten away with this.
Remember, after October 7th, they went right into pro-Hamas. It wasn't anti-Israel alone.
It was pro-Hamas. And almost every immigration codicil, if you look at the law about green cards or student visas, it says that a guest here shall not be openly advocating or working on behalf of terrorist organization.
Hamas is a U.S. declared terrorist organization.
And remember those wonderful monuments in D.C. that were desecrated and they had all the red and they said Hamas on them.
And these students know what they're doing. And again, it's that old Voltaire phrase to encourage the others.
They will not have to deport all of these people because they're just going to have to deport 10 or 20 of them.

And then I spent 50 years in academia and I can tell you there's two things that I learned.

Number one, faculty are among the most timid, herd-like people in the world.

If they think that it's cool to censor Scott Atlas and Jay Bacharya, then they fight with each other to get on record to do that. When they think that it's not cool to do that and they have an NIH grant and Jay is the arbiter of that, then they say, I never did it.
I was always against it. So, a lot of faculty were involved.
If they see that people who are visiting professors, for example, and they have been advocating or announcing these demonstrations and they're deported, it'll stop among the faculty. And students are heard like at that age.
And they just react to pressure. And they are bullies.
When you watch those students go in there and they just scream and yell and scream at the NYPD, you know, about gun, shoot yourself and horrible things. And then you have this pathetic scene where the Dean wanted to go to use her own restroom and they mocked her and then they finally let her go it would be you know i don't want to be too melodramatic but a napoleonic whiff of grapeshot would have stopped the whole thing i don't mean that literally i just mean all you had to do was have one high profile person and then they just have to say you violated the the terms of your student visa or your green card.
So, we're going to give you your heart's desire. You get to go back to where you came from.
And then you don't have to be here anymore in the great state. And I think that'll stop it.
It's almost stopped it at Stanford University. We had a disruption of Larry Summers, but they weren't students.
And I think everybody knows that if you're at Stanford and you camp out more than 24 hours and you do the Hamas stuff, that for the first time in memory, there's going to be a statute enforced. And they know that.
So, they don't do it. It's all about deterrence.
The same

thing about the border. Tom Holman had a good point.
He said, we're not going to have a problem. I remember he said that during the campaign.
All we have to do is arrest a few hundred and show everybody we're business and then these caravans will turn around. And now all he has to do is if they can start deporting people and say the following.

If you get deported, you can... around.
And now all he has to do is if they can start deporting people and say the following,

if you get deported, you can never come in the United States again legally. That's it.
You're on record. So, we urge everybody who came in here illegally, who wants to be a resident or citizen of the United States States, legally go back home and wait in line like everybody else and apply.
Because if we catch you, you're never, ever going to be able to have a green card or a student visa or come back in this country. And that would have a lot of self-deportations immediately.
I think that's what they're going to do. Yeah.
Well, Victor, I just, I wonder if a bunch of kids from Young America's Foundation or TPUSA sat in at, say, Oberlin College, what would happen to them? Their hineys would be kicked out. You know, it was funny you said that.
In 19, I'm going to get this completely straight, 1973? No. Yes, 1973.
I was a second year student at UC Santa Cruz. It was during the Cambodia, you're too young, but the bombing of Cambodia.
I remember. And I was at UCSC and they said there was going to be a student strike.
And there was a 28-year-old guy in my class who had been in prison, believe it. He was on a special program to go to UC Santa Cruz.
And I was from a farm, and there was a couple of guys from Modesto. And we were all kind of hung out.
And it was a Greek history class. And sure enough, these guys came in, we're shutting it down.
How dare you hold a class? And the professor was kind of, he's a nice guy, but he was not completely muscular, maybe put it that way. And so, these little skinny Antifa type guys, even then, you know, spaghetti arms, nasal voice, screaming profanities.
And they just started to come in and throw chairs, you know what I mean, at us. And it didn't take this one guy, grabbed a guy by the neck and he kicked him in the rear end and he held his neck while he kept kicking him down the hallway.
And then they all just, it was like a... They folded? Yeah, it was like a Western word of the Indians are all attacking in the Calvary cone and they just make a U-turn.
They just made a U-turn like they were on horses and just ran back down. And then, as I remember, the professor didn't seem too happy with us.
But we all, that point is that these people are not formidable people. And they don't have a lot of courage.
And they don't have a good, they're not on the right side of history. They don't have a good, they don't have a good proposal.
They don't have a good ideology. The idea that you come into a foreign country and as guests, you start insulting and hurting people.
And you know, the other thing is, if you just substituted Jews for blacks, just do that, everybody in your mind, or Hispanics. And then you had a group of people that were screaming and they were deliberately going into black studies classes or La Raza studies classes and challenging the professor.
And everybody makes fun of the proud boys and, you know, all those are oath keepers. But just say if they were doing that, if they were going into a university and in very racist terms, trying to confront people who were black or Hispanic and disrupting their classes

and calling these names and chasing them around camp.

How long would it have been before James Comey or Andrew McKay or Christopher Wray's FBI

would have had them in jail?

And then the DOJ would have had them in prison for 10 years.

Not long.

But with Jews, nobody cared.

And that's what was so bad about.

Well, Victor, we're going to keep a little bit on Trump's speech

and some polls about it, some polls on Democrats,

maybe Hakeem Jeffries is standing in the party.

And you can eat an apple, take a bite out of it, and we will be back from these important messages. We are back with the Victor Davis Hanson Show, recording on March 10th.
This episode is up on Tuesday, March 11th. Victor's got a website, The Blade of Perseus.
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You will regret not having done so already. So Victor, here's a CBS News YouGov poll taken a day or two after Trump's speech.
what was your take america on on the speech 77 these numbers are like really incredible 77 support his plan to cut government waste and spending 77 sent back his immigration and border policies 77 76 approved of the speech 76% approved of removing the congressman who interrupted it.

74% said his speech was presidential. 73% supported his stance on Russia and Ukraine.
Victor, America loved what they saw Tuesday night. They did.
And if Donald Trump succeeds in this counter-revolution, I think he will. 40 to 50 percent is a gift he got.
I wrote an article today about it, and it's from the lunatic left. Because when he was giving that speech or when he gives any speech and you see these reporters or the adversaries in Congress, it's amazing.
They're just playing right into his hands. They're so obnoxious.
They're so creepy. And did you see the Senate? There was two things that were, the House women, they wore sort of kickboxing mixed martial arts tights.
Did you see that? For the crazy video they did? Yeah. Like this, AOC and Jasmine Crockett.
What was that all about? Pick your fighter. Well, I guess there's some TikTok-y kind of thing.
Pick your fighter. I think it's based off some kid's game.
I don't know if it's Pokemon or some mutant ninja power turtles. I'm not sure what it was.
But, yeah, it was performance art. That is what their party is about.
And did you see the senators? They were using the SHIT. This is all, and they just kept saying it.
I don't like it when Trump says it. But he doesn't say it like that.
They just kept resonating. I thought so that's the Senate version and this is the House version and then you've got the placards and this.
What do you think you people are doing? And then you turn on television and you think, you mentioned Nicole Wallace. So, she's berating a little boy who's got cancer, who's supposedly being used by Donald Trump because he wants to signify that there's a new secret service that's empathetic and there's a young kid in the United States whose dream was to be a secret service agent.
It's come to his attention. He's had a brain tumor.
And the father is there with him. And then you have Nicole Wallace and Rachel Maddow blasting him.
And they wouldn't even stand up. They wouldn't even stand up to honor him.
They didn't stand up for anybody almost. So, and then I don't know what the strategy is, is what I'm trying to say.
It's just nihilism. If they were wise, they would get together and they said, this is the democratic contract for America.
And they would say, we are for Doge, but we want to cut, I don't know, more supervisors and less clerical workers. Or we want to find places to find them jobs.
Or we want to cut this program or this. Or we can work with you on the Defense Department, things they don't like.
So, they would have an alternate one. And they would try to find the issues with the poll, you know, not their issues at poll 20% or 30, but 60, 70, 80, like Trump's issue.
Or they would join Trump on the border. They would say, you see, what do you need, Donald Trump? And then they would take credit for it, try to hijack the credit and say, well, we worked with Donald Trump kind of like Clinton did with Gingrich when he was willing to raise taxes for cuts.
And then Clinton said, I balance the budget, not Gingrich. So they would try to hone in on Trump's, but they don't do any of that.
It's just nihilist. And they don't have any other strategy.
But their only strategy is Trump is a fascist, fascist, fascist. And then we had Chris Matthews, whom I know a little bit.
And he thinks it can't be Hitler anymore. So, I'll just give an exegesis on Mussolini.
Yes, Chris, it's already been used. I'm sorry.
I think General McCaffrey already said when he violated Article 88 back in 2020, he called Donald Trump. I'm pretty sure it was him.
He that called him Mussolini. So you're late to the party again.
Then you have James Carville. He's the, say, the Croatian Cajun.
He's reinvented himself at 80, Jack, as the seer. He's wrong on everything.
He said, Donald Trump's going to lose. He's just a big effing white whale.
He's a weak effing big fat boy.

Kamala Harris is not my favorite.

She's going to win.

No, she lost.

You were completely wrong about that.

And then he sees a little bruise on Trump's right hand. Yeah.

And he doesn't say to himself, if you were president and you give as many media appearances and interviews as he does and you go to rallies, you probably shake in a month five or six thousand hands. And you probably get a lot of muscle stress, torn tissue.

I know that when I do a book signing, I can do 200 and every once in a while there's some guy who wants to, you know what I mean, shake your hand like a vice.

Like he's trying to get water out of a pump.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've had that and it hurts.

If you've done 200 of them, well, that's nothing to what Trump does.

So, he sees the blotch and then he diagnoses him as tertiary syphilis, syphilitic. So, Donald Trump is crazy and he's a syphilitic.
And okay, Mr. Carwell, you have no medical knowledge.
That's like saying Joe Biden has syphilis because according to his diagnosis, Trump is crazy and says crazy things. Well, then what would Biden? Why is Biden acting that way? And he said, well, there was Stormy Daniel.
Well, there was Tara Reid, too. So Joe Biden, it was no chorus boy.
So that's the level of opposition that they have to Trump. And it's pathetic.
Well, let me share a poll results about the Democrats. I think this is from Politico titled Poll Show Dems Have Lost Their Way.
Voters still have a sour view of Democrats. Six weeks after Trump Republicans swept into Washington with control, according to a new poll.
Plurality 40 percent, said the Democratic Party doesn't have any strategy whatsoever for responding to Trump, according to the survey by the liberal firm Blueprint that was first shared with Politico. Another 24 percent said Democrats have a game plan, but it's a bad one.
And a paltry 10 percent said that the party has solid technique for dealing with Trump. And this is all coming from the Democrat outfits survey.
I think I want to layer onto that, Victor. Their leadership is, maybe they're yearning for Nancy Pelosi.
Their leadership is Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. And Hakeem Jeffries has come out of this last week uh looking uh pretty bit pretty bad i'll just leave it i'll shut up after this a friend of mine called him on on mr moore on on x described him as a dollar store obama um i think that's pretty well i mean i don't think a nephew should suffer the sins of an uncle, but I followed very carefully the career of his uncle, Lionel Jeffries.
And he was a black studies racist professor at San Jose State for years and maybe two or three years. Was he the Kwanzaa guy? What? Was he the Kwanzaa guy? No, he was the ice people and sun people.

Okay.

And he even didn't think of that.

He expropriated it from another scholar.

But he was a big guy. He went after Mary Lefkowitz when she wrote Not Out of Africa.
But his big theory was that black people are much more sensitive because of their skin color and the sun,

the nourishing value of sun from Africa and the cold, mean, heartless,

barbaric people from Northern Europe or ice people.

And he was fired, I think, from NYU.

I don't know if they gave him some money and then he took it and then he came

back and he lost it. I don't know what it was, but he was a out and out inveterate racist.

And when Hikeem Jeffries was young, he was kind of bought in that for a while.

So, he was from a very radical background and then everybody loved him because he was the,

as you say, the dime store, dollar store Obama. He was very well-spoken, we were told.
He was a young, handsome guy. And he was just a complete empty suit.
He's just a complete – there has been three iconic interviews, I was thinking of right now, when three Democratic leaders were asked questions, and the first was Tim Waltz, and he was talking about Nazis and fascists running the country. Of course, they always say that, and I don't know why the interviewers don't say to them, well, what Nazi? I need the name of the Nazi, and I need the fascist, and I need the evidence that he is a Nazi, instead of just saying, Nazis, fascist, Nazis, fascist.
I don't think that Chris Matthews knows anything about the biography of Mussolini. Nothing at all.
And what fascism was, he just, you know, he just spouted off a bunch of stuff. But Tim Waltz was asked, who leads the Democratic Party? Do you see him? Well, the people, the people, the people.
No, who's the leader? He couldn't answer. So then they asked Hakeem Jeffries about, well, the second one was Gavin Newsom.
He had that Charlie Kirk interview. Now he has a podcast and he's inviting so-called conservatives to debate him.
And Charlie Kirk just said, how can your party vote overwhelmingly to let biological males destroy women's sports? and he said that's not right we got killed on that issue and then Charlie just said well why don't you do something about

it your state is

you destroy women's sports. And he said, that's not right.
We got killed on that issue. And then Charlie just said, well, why don't you do something about it? Your state is refusing to abide by NCAA rules and the Trump executive order.
And he didn't say anything. So, it was just empty verbiage.
It was like, well, I know I have to say this because I'm trying to repackage and recalibrate myself to run for president. And that's a losing 80-20 issue.
But on the other hand, if I sell out my base, I got the Antifa, BLM, Hamas group, and they'll swarm my house. So they'll hit me up and shout me down.
And then I got the teachers unions and the federal employee unions. And I just don't want to do it.
So I'll just sound off. And so he and then when they ask Hakeem Jeffries about that, well, he just said and they ask him specifically, what is your what is your position about biological males going into locker rooms with young girls, underage girls who are changing swimming or sports.
We don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't support sexual predation, sexual predators. What does that mean? Are you saying that the trans people that you're defending are sexual predators? He's just clueless, you know.
And you look at Nancy Pelosi, you know, she just sits back there and goes, I did all of these dastardly things to get advantage from my party.

I was willing to lie.

I was willing to break the rules.

I was willing to kick people off committees that had never been kicked off before. The minority nominations.
I rigged the January 6th. I used that.
I did everything I could for 20 years. And this guy comes in and he takes my place as

minority leader and

he'll be the speaker

and he'll destroy everything I've done

because he's a total incompetent.

He is a total

Cory Booker 2.0.

Chuck Schumer

is degrading

quickly also from the

great man of politics he was supposed to be. Yeah, he'll never get over.
Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, you sowed the wind. You're going to reap the whirlwind.
You won't know what hit you. And he never really got over there.
Threatening two Supreme Court judges at the head of a mob outside the doors of the court.

If anybody else had done that, if a Republican, if Ted Cruz had said that to, you know, Kagan or anybody, Kanji Brown, Kanji Brown, Kagan, you won't know what's going to hit you with a bunch of crazy MA people outside the supreme court you would have had the fbi arrest everybody in two seconds victor we're going to take a second for our friends at besthotgrill.com they make hot fast solaire infrared grills with prices rising everywhere you want to make sure your hard-earned money is spent well. So here's what you can get when you buy a 21-inch and larger Solar Infrared Backyard Grill.
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Victor, I want to pick up again on Nicole Wallace, if you don't mind, what she said in response to President Trump's speech while she was saying her truly rancid thing. Who was sitting there? Michael Steele and Jen Psaki.
And they just sat there and didn't say peep as far as I could see on any videos. And I'm, of course, more than embarrassed for Nicole Wallace, but much more so, too, for the former head of the Republican Party, Michael Steele.
I was never fond of him. I always thought he was a mediocrity and an opportunist.
I think that was after, that was after the Obama election and the Republican

rhinos thought Rush Limbaugh is all through that, that conservative wing is over with.

It's the new Obama age. We need to get a black conservative version of Obama.
And that's why

Michael Steele was picked, but he'd never had any success much higher. What did he, what was he,

what was the highest office that he had run for? He ran for Senate in Maryland and he lost. And was he a lieutenant governor? Yes.
Yeah. But he never was governor.
And he just was an opportunist as soon as he saw that the media and where the money was to be on cable news was anti-Trump, he just flipped. And so there was even a worse thing where it was Michael Steele and the woman, African-American woman, Simone.
You remember her, the heavyset Simone Sandra? Is that her name? She was an advisor to Kamala Harris at one point. And they were bragging, especially Simone, about Elon Musk.
They were cheering on the fact that his latest rocket blew up on the air. She was giggling, giggling.
And then Michael Steele got a little embarrassed.

He said, well, okay, that's enough.

And then he said, but this is a reminder, Elon, maybe you should go back to what you're good at and clean up your mess before you get out of town, get out of doge. But the idea that a major person on a network anchor would start to celebrate and giggle the explosion of a rocket, especially when we're in the process of trying to use that type of technology and rocketry to save three people who this week we learned.
one of them just basically said they abandoned us, that we wanted to, we had a SpaceX rocket and we had that it was docked. We wanted to go home.
We had complete confidence. And Biden didn't want to do it for political reasons, i.e.
Musk had joined the Trump campaign and was funding anti-Biden, anti-Harris things in Pennsylvania. And he thought this would make Elon Musk look too good.
So you can't get on that. So they were stuck there for, it's almost going to be a year, isn't it? It's just beyond twisted that that would happen.
That they would do that. Yeah.
And it's pretty sick. Well, Victor, well, let's get one more thought because we want to get a little truncated today so you can recover and don't want to wear you out totally.
We want to get your thoughts about the Ukraine war and some of the fables you've written about. But before we do that, we can take a break.
Any thought about the Al Green censure that only 10 Democrats voted for it? And I just think that the age of decorum is over. I give credit to our – I've been in three different districts, you know, because my farm here where I'm speaking from is on a tri-corner of three different congressional districts.
Sometimes I was in Nunes, sometimes I was in David Valdeo, sometimes I was in Jim Costas. I'm in Jim Costas again.
And I give him credit. He voted to censor as a Democrat.
And there was only 10. And if you don't censor him for that, at some point, I don't know, I think they need to just get rid of all of these ethnic racial essentialism caucuses, this is 65 years after civil rights.
And there are a lot of African-American conservatives. There's an increasing number of Hispanic conservatives.
If they're going to keep these race-based caucuses, then they at least need to say they're left wing. You know, they can say the Socialist African-American Caucus, the, I don't know, the Jacobin-La Raza Caucus.
But the idea that they're representing a community, it's not accurate. And to the degree it is accurate, it just divides people.
So, you have Bowman of the Black Caucus and they all rallied around him. Remember, they censored him when he let off the fire alarm, Black Caucus protected him.
And then you had the same thing with Al Green and everybody said it was racist. Al Green himself said it was racist.
They were going after him. And so the problem is that anytime you get an exemption for any reason, ideology, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic background, nepotism, race.
The problem with human nature is that once you tell somebody, you can do what you want because your dad is the boss. Or you can do what you want because your family is very wealthy.
Or you can do what you want because we're afraid to be called racist by you. Or you can do what you want or we're afraid that you'll say I'm homophobic.
Or you can do what I want, what you want. I'm afraid you'll call me misogynistic.
Then that person has got a blank check. And it doesn't help them any because there's no deterrence left.
And so, that's the same thing with Jasmine Crockett. She says to herself, well, Bowman's gone and the squad has kind of ran out of gas.
AOC looks very lethargic lately, you know, like she's been reaching early middle age or something. And is she married now or she's engaged or something? She doesn't squeeze.
Her heart is not in it anymore. And Rashid Tlaib got a cause that 75% of Americans don't like, the pro-Hamas card.
And Bowman has been kicked out, and this Jasmine Crockett from Texas thinks she's the new squad firebrand, and she says these ridiculous things and tries to get in a fight with Marjorie Taylor Greene back and forth. And all these caucuses just turn people off.
They really do. Yeah really do.
Remember that the Hispanic, the Mexican

American woman who won that special

election on the Texas

border? Yes.

I think she was not allowed

into the Hispanic caucus, even though

she was a Republican.

You're right.

They should brand themselves

for what they really are. I don't know what it means either in our multiracial society.
Well, they also have related foundations, Victor, which turn into, and we know how foundations are used now, you know, to raise money and then to line pockets of friends. So these caucuses, like the Black Caucus has a Black Caucus foundation.
And it's become a racket on top of just being it. It has.
But what makes you black, or you have to use the one-drop rule from the old Confederacy? Right. Obama was, I mean, when Obama was 18, his name was Barry Sotero.
And he was considered an Indonesian dual citizen, I think, for a while. And he was raised by, he was half white and he was raised by white parents.
And then he reasserted his other half, which is, and changed his name or reverted to his original name. My point is that once you get into this racial essentialism, you have to have rules about what makes you a particular race.
And so, how many people in the Hispanic caucuses are not completely Mexican-American or Cuban? Are they intermarried? They're maybe one quarter, one third, one eighth. And people say, well, Victor, it doesn't really matter.
That's the point. It doesn't really matter how much you are of something.

Unless you want to do what Elizabeth warned, that identity is like gender, transgender. You can assert and create your own gender.
Right. And therefore, you can be Pocahontas.
You can say, I am Native American and I want to be the first Native American professor of law at Harvard. And if you can say that I'm now trans and I was a man yesterday, today I'm a woman, then why can't Elizabeth Warren say, yesterday I was a Oklahoma lily white woman with blonde hair.
And today I'm Native American.

So it's high cheekbones, Victor. They win every time.
And then there's a cruel law, isn't there, of human nature and the laws of the universe that correct all this and cannot be tampered with by humans. And by that, I mean no no biological, no biological woman says, I'm transitioning to be a man and I want to compete in the Olympic discus competition.
I am transitioning and I can, now that I am a complete biological man, and you people who use the word biological, it's wrong. I am male in any way and I'm going to go out for the NFL.
Or I'm going to be a high school high jumper and break all the records and destroy men's records. Never.
Not one. Why is that? Why is that? And that's what they don't understand.
understand that there's certain laws that say this, this, this, this, this. And the same thing it is with race.
You can't just assert yourself and say that you're Native American. But my point is this on race.
Why do you have people who in the night?

Do you have people who are light-skinned African Americans who claim they're not African Americans and they're white? We used to. It was called Passing.
There was a movie called Pinky. Remember that? And it was because we were in parts of this country racist.
And if you were African American, that's what the human stain was about. Remember with Anthony Hopkins? He was part black in that movie.
He didn't even acknowledge it. But the point I'm making is people react to where the benefits are and where the opportunities are.
So now it behooves you to accentuate if you're of mixed heritage that you are completely one race because that means you are a part of the Marxist binary victim class and not the victimizer which is reserved for white people. But 40 years ago, the so-called white class was where the privilege was.
And so, anybody wanted to trans naturally, if they could, would say they were white and they masked their minority. I'm not justifying or defending any of this.
I'm just saying that whatever the situation is where there is advantages, people make the necessary adjustments, whether it's gender, sexual orientation, or race, which makes the whole thing ridiculous.

And if we could just say, you know what, you don't have to identify by your sexual orientation,

your sexual, your gender, you don't have to say, I'm a Latina every time you take a class. You don't have to say, well, as a black man, or, you know what I mean?

You just don't want to do that anymore.

It's redundant.

We don't need it anymore. And think of the country is ready for that amen my friend well we're going to get uh come around the home stretch uh the turn whatever it is final turn into the home stretch i haven't been to a racetrack in a long time you'll forgive me and we're going to get your views victor on this uh column you've written about hard truths behind Trump-Ukraine tales.
We're going to do that when we come back from these final important messages. We're back with the Victor Davis Hanson Show, recording on March 10th.
This shows up on the 11th. I'm here with the indestructible Victor Davis Hanson.
I don't know if that's an attribute, Victor. I guess it is, one of the alternatives.
Yeah, you wrote this column. This is your syndicated column.
I'm looking at today's New York Post post i'm not sure if it's just syndicated column but maybe they took it from from ultra but anyway you have five uh fables um about the um ukraine war and trump and would you share one or two of these fables victor your trade war uh negotiating with putin is selling out that's one of the fables. Yeah.
How about that? Negotiating with Putin is selling out. Who started the idea? Mike McFaul, my colleague, has an article in The Atlantic about Putin.
But who created it and who appeased him and who didn't and all that? Who was the person who dreamed up the idea of Russian reset? If I remember, it was Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and the people that were the ambassador to Russia and others. And why did they do this? Because they felt that cowboy George W.
Bush had been too cruel and mean to Russia.

And they were sensitive to Russia. And they knew that deep down inside Putin, he wanted to be a Western Eurocentric technocrat.
And they were going to reset that now that Bush had sanctioned Putin for going into Osatia and Georgia in 2008. So Obama came in and was like, well, I'm so charismatic that everybody loves me and I can just charm a hill.
He'll go over there and charm Vladimir, get a jacuzzi button out of some spa and push it. And then that'll be reset.
And we'll just trash Bush for being hard on poor Vladimir. And that's what it was.
And it was appeasement, appeasement, appeasement. And it had many manifestations, everybody.
One of them was the Russians had been out of the Middle East for 40 years. Henry Kissinger got them out.
He sabotaged them. And right after the Yom Kippur War in 74, early 74, he got the Egyptians as American clients.
And they kicked out the Soviet. And the Soviets had nowhere to go.
They had one client, Syria, but they couldn't even get it near there. They were impotent.
And then in 2011, John Kerry, remember, asked the Soviet foreign minister if he could come in and help the United States deal with Afes Bashar al-Assad's WMD. Remember, I think it was Susan Rice said, well, we got rid of it.
Yeah, it's gone. The Russians came in and we invited them and we both got rid of it.
They didn't. He used it after that.
But they were the ones that were bringing the Russians into the Middle East. They were the ones that were trashing Bush's being too hard on.
And then we had the famous March. What was it? March 20 something, 20th, 2012 in Seoul, South Korea.
Obama's talking to then President Medved. He was the intern between Putin 1.0 and 2.0.
And he said he thought no one was listening. So, he was on a mic.
This is hot now, so it was something similar. And he said, tell Vladimir that this is my last election, and if you give me space, he's got to give me space in my last election, and I'll be flexible, and this will defend.
Okay? My last election. And translated that meant, I will sell out U.S.
plans with a Czech Republic in Poland to create a missile defense, protect us maybe from Middle East missiles, Iran, but also maybe Russia. If you tell him to stay within his borders and not try something like he did in Georgia, at least until I'm elected.
After 2012, it's my last election. I need space.
And so, what happened? They both kept their bargain, everybody. We got rid of space, I mean, missile defense in Eastern Europe, and Putin did not invade until Obama was elected.
And then he, 18 months later, he went right into Crimea, Donbass.

And Crimea and Donbass. Crimea and Donbass.
That was reset. That was reset.
And there were other elements of reset from the Obama administration. One was not to sell Ukraine any offensive weapons.
They had the worst of both worlds. They would not arm Ukraine to protect them from the Russians, but they interfered in the 2014 election.
I'm not saying that Viktor Yanukovych, whatever his name is, was not a Russian pro-Russian. I mean, he obviously was, but they did help organize masks, they being Victoria Nuland, the Obama State Department.
It's not a conspiracy theory. They did really want him out.
And they were high-fiving. They got Viktor Pershingko in there and then eventually Zelensky.
Well, that was Russian reset. And it was all based on the idea they could charm Vladimir Putin and they were not right-wing odious ogres.
And it blew up in their face. It blew up in their face.
So then Trump came in. And first thing we know, they're impeaching him.
After the Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, Steele dossier, Steele dossier, Russian collusion. And then it fails.
They thought, what's next? Oh, we'll impeach him for a phone call. And Mr.
Vindman, who now I think is an arms dealer, isn't he, Jack? He has a nonprofit and he facilitates arms transfers from the United States to his native land. He was the one that broke protocol, disclosed a classified call to Mr.
Saramella, the so-called whistleblower, and we were off to the races with impeachment. But the point I'm making with all this is reset, reset, reset was a left-wing Obama-Clinton idea.
Trump came in. I know he said all these things that he could get along and Putin liked him and all that, but look at what he did and all what he said.
He started giving them javelins. They did not go anywhere under Trump's tenure.
They stayed within their borders. Why? Well, you can argue, but it was pretty much he thought Trump was crazy or unpredictable and it was stupid to take a chance by going in again to Ukraine.
He killed, I don't know what he killed, what, two or three hundred of the Wagner group in Syria that gave Trump a call and said, we're being attacked. And he said, get rid of them.
Killed more Russians than anybody during the entire Cold War. And then he upped sanctions on the oligarchs.
And he got out of the asymmetrical missile deal. There's that famous conversation where he's sitting across from the Eurocrats.
Remember that, Jack, where he says, and you guys are really crazy. You're getting to a situation where one day you're going to be entirely dependent on Russian gas and energy.
And they're going, look at him, look at Trump. Look at that stupid American.
He doesn't know anything about us. And then that's exactly what happened.
He warned them. So my point of that in that thing was that Donald Trump was the hardest on Russia of any of the last four administrations.
And as far as dealing with Putin, you can't deal with Putin. You can't deal with Putin.
You can't deal with Stalin. Stalin killed 20 million people.
FDR said to Churchill at Yalta, I think you better let me talk. Stalin doesn't like you, Winston.
He likes me, Uncle Joe. He likes me.
So, I'll deal with Uncle Joe. And the rest was history.
Wasn't too good the deal that he figured out with Uncle Joe. We dealt with Nixon went to China and dealt with the biggest mass murder in the history of civilization.
Mao Zedong, 70 million people killed. Franco was, he probably killed 30 or 40,000 in jails and detentions over his career.
And we negotiated with him all during the Cold War. And even though he was not democratic, Spain became a NATO member.
That was considered fine. Right during, after the fall of France, for a brief naive moment, Churchill thought he could, he didn't want to, but he let people, Halifax, talk to Mussolini.
They thought Mussolini would cut him a deal. It happens all the time.
And I won't even get into Castro. There were so many left-wing politicians have thought they could charm Fidel Castro into becoming our friend.
So, it's just absurd. It really is what the left is saying right now.
And I think he'll get a deal one way or the other. I think my only criticism of him was that I didn't mind him saying they're not going to be a NATO.
They're never going to be a NATO. So why lie about it as if it's a card?

But I would say that you've got to pressure both sides. And he allowed the left to say about Trump that he was pro-Putin and anti-Zelensky.
And Putin now is killing more people than usual. He's accelerating because he thinks there's going to be a peace.
So Trump has had to come out and say, I'm going to sanction you if you continue to do that. And that's good.
But as long as he pivots and tells Russia, if you think you're going to take advantage of my magnanimity, then you've got another thought coming. And I think he can get a deal.
Once the Ukrainians realize that he's tough on Putin as well. Well, you will find this column we've just been referring to on Victor's website, The Blade of Perseus.
So I want to recommend folks check it out. Victor, I think we've tortured you enough today, but actually, the last time we spoke, we end the show by reading comments that our listeners send in.
One was about health. One was from a lady who liked the longer podcast because she exercises more while she's listening.
And two people wrote similar. And we're going to share them.
And these are from the Blade of Perseus. By the way, folks who listen on Apple, and so many people do, you can rate the show.
Zero to five stars. Thousands of you have.
Thank you. Victor's got a 4.9 out of 5.
People leave comments. We read them too.
And read all the comments. Thanks for taking the time and effort to do that.
So here are two comments, though, from your website. One's from John Wheeler, who writes, I thought I would report that I'm also on the VDH fitness bandwagon.
The podcast usually lasts about an hour and 10 minutes. So I've upped my time when I lift weights from 50 minutes to whenever Jack or Samria Victor say goodbye.
I had the pleasure of meeting Victor at a Hillsdale function some years ago and have become an avid fan, listener, and reader of his books and columns. And he's keeping my 72-year-old body fit.
Then the other is, Victor, you need a 72-year-old fit body.

I'm a 71-year-old.

Apparently, whatever I'm trying to do to get over the flu is not working.

Well, you better get to 72.

Maybe he can give me advice.

How do you get over influenza A within five days?

You've got to find the patron saint of influenza.

Then there's James Higgins who writes, I haven't had a chance yet to see Victor patron saint of influenza then there's uh james higgins who

writes i haven't had a chance yet to see victor's headwear on the video version of his podcast i generally listen while i'm walking my dog he's pokey likes to frequently sit and watch for cars i don't mind because i'm listening to victor jack and sammy the longer the walk takes the longer i can enjoy listening to Victor's judicious commentary, entertaining impersonations, and fascinating stories from his past. Thanks, Victor.
Thanks, James. Thanks, John.
Thank you. I want to thank folks who write me.
I get a lot of emails now from folks who have taken the time and are enjoying Civil Thoughts. That's a free weekly email newsletter I write for the Center for Civil Society.

It has 14 recommended readings, great pieces I've come across the previous week.

Go to civiltoughts.com, sign up.

It's free, no strings attached, not selling your name.

So thanks for those who do that.

Victor, you've survived.

I did. Thank you.
just one last comment about influenza impersonations oh my father when you try to get us up when we were like 10 years old on the way to school it was during the cuban missile crisis then afterwards everybody had remembered kennedy so he'd say uh he'd say two things one was uh dwight ehower, who had said in 1960, get out and get out and vote for Dick Nixon. He'd say that to us to yell us, to get us awake.
And the other one, he'd go, you can't have missiles in Cuba. You can't have missiles in Cuba.
That was JFK. Do you remember he used to say cuber cuber yeah cuba cuber okay all right victor thanks thanks everybody we'll be back with another episode of the thank you everybody bye-bye if you've been with us at all over the last six months or so, you are probably familiar with one of our favorite new brews, Wired2Fish Coffee.
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