Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.
Victor Davis Hanson: I get really tired of the Left and some of the Right because they keep saying “forever war,” “miasma,” Vietnam, Afghanistan. Take a deep breath. Eight and a half months, right? Twenty-two people have been killed [in the Iran War]. That’s tragic. But in those eight months, we would have lost—we’d lost about 250 people killed by accidents, one a day.
So, in terms of historical blood and treasure cost, it’s been amazing that you could pretty much destroy the economy, the military and the nuclear industry of Iran. And it’s about ready—if you would arm the opposition, it could just implode in the next two years. And they’re not going to get a weapon with that economy and with the United States able to do whatever it wants to it.
But they keep saying that this is an endless war, and it’s destroyed—I mean, I don’t understand it. Gas got up to well over what it is now under Joe Biden, and we had 5.1% average inflation. It’s only about 3% now, a little higher.
As I said last time, the Fed projections for the fourth quarter are that it’s going to be about 2.5% for the year and maybe 3.5% for the last quarter.
So it’s just mind-boggling.
Sami Winc: Yes, that the Democrats can argue that the economy is not going well for individuals. I see that.
Victor Davis Hanson: I can see that.
Sami Winc: Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Victor Davis Hanson: But it’s gas. It’s just based on gasoline. If you look at the unemployment rate, it’s 4.2%. The poverty rate is the lowest in history. The per capita family income is the highest in history.
We have an enormous amount of foreign investment. We’re leading the entire world in digital media, AI, software, and space. All that is helping the economy with new investments. Elon Musk is building these huge new buildings.
GDP is good.
Inflation, with all the problems with energy, is still a little bit over 3%. I remind myself that I took a loan out from the Production Credit Association in 1981 for 16%—or 16%—and I bought a used car for 19%. We thought we had gone to heaven when we mortgaged some of the land, and the Federal Land Bank gave us an interest rate of 9.5%.
So I think everybody’s just got to get real.
Sami Winc: Yeah, exactly. Well, I just thought it was interesting. There was a debate between Sen. Cory Booker and his opponent in New Jersey, Justin Murphy.
Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah, he never debates, though, does he, Cory?
Sami Winc: No.
Victor Davis Hanson: He just screams and yells, “I’m Spartacus.”
Sami Winc: Yes, but Justin Murphy, on the Iran war, said Trump needs to put—so I’m paraphrasing, and I might not be using the exact same words—but he said Trump needs to put his cowboy boots on and get in there and finish that war and get it done fast, you know?
Victor Davis Hanson: And Cory Booker just thought—oh—We don’t say that in America anymore, that we want to win wars.
Sami Winc: Yeah. What I was reading said he looked a little shocked. So …
Victor Davis Hanson: There’s one thing that should be pointed out. How did this all start? I mean, just ask yourself how it all starts. How did we get a war with Russia to begin with?
It started in 2008, as I said, when George W. Bush was mired in Iraq and his popularity was low, and the last thing he wanted to do was save Ossetia and Georgia. And Putin saw that he was weak and compromised, so he took it.
And then there was Barack Obama, and Obama did the apology tour. He cut defense. He demonized Russia after he tried to have a reset. Remember, he said, “There’s a red line, and if I see WMD moving around, that’s a red line in the Middle East.” And then they moved it around, and he didn’t do anything.
So Vladimir Putin sized him up very quickly. He’s arrogant, he’s loud and he’s weak, so he invaded Crimea and the Donbas.
OK. And he was angry because they felt the Obama administration and the Kagan couple had been writing and influencing. And there was a conversation between our NATO representative. Basically, it was kind of conspiratorial: “We’re going to do this.” And we were interfering in the elections in Ukraine. And the Biden family was interfering a lot with Hunter.
So they looked at that as weakness, and then we skedaddled out of Afghanistan—the greatest humiliating retreat I’ve ever seen, worse than the 75 copters off the embassy in Vietnam.
And then Biden was asked, “What would you do if Putin is going to invade? He’s massing troops in Belarus.” And he said, “It depends on whether it’s a minor invasion.” Well, he added all that up, and so he said, “I’m just going to try to take Kyiv.”
That failed, and then he tried to expand his Donbas area further west.
What I’m getting at is that there’s only one president he didn’t do that to, and that was Donald Trump, because he’d seen Soleimani, Baghdadi, ISIS and the Wagner Group, right? And he thought he was too volatile.
So now it’s very ironic for the Left to say that he’s appeasing Putin when Putin’s aggressions over four presidencies did not include only one presidency: Donald Trump’s.
Sami Winc: I wondered if you had anything to say about the Ilhan Omar investigation. It looks like they are getting evidence that she was involved in the fraud in Minnesota, selling fake wine, and that she was channeling government money to her relatives and pretending that—
Victor Davis Hanson: Are you saying the walls are closing in, as the Left said?
Sami Winc: Yeah, the walls are closing in, and the DNA with her married spouse—brother.
Victor Davis Hanson: I don’t know. They were reporting leaks from the investigation that the DNA now confirms that she married her brother.
That was a rumor yesterday. I don’t know if it does or not. We can’t talk about rumors, but if she is found to have married her brother, and she did change—or it is found that when she applied for citizenship, she was 18, as an adult, and she lied about that and then later changed her birthday officially because she didn’t want to come in through her father, once her father has been exposed as a possible war criminal, a genocidal colonel in Siad Barre’s genocidal regime.
And she’s basically saying two things: “I was not 18, so I was just a child. My father sponsored me as his daughter, and I came in through him. And I can’t be punished for his sins.” You know what I’m saying? “And I wasn’t able to make these decisions.”
If she lied about that, she knew well, and she should have been adjudicated on her own merits at 18. That’s one thing.
The second is, did she or did she not get her brother over to the United States through a green card by marrying him? And she’s denied that—and she hasn’t denied it. She said anybody who just said what I said is a racist, horrible person, da, da, da, da, da.
But again, it’s not about—you can say, “Well, Trump is just targeting her.” That’s like saying Biden targeted her not to investigate her because this was all known, and they wouldn’t let anybody—I mean, they had an investigation. They whitewashed her.
So everybody should just ask themselves: Did she marry her brother or not? Was her father a colonel in a genocidal army and did not tell us that when she came into the country?
In other words, if she was 17, as she lies, apparently, and attached herself to him, maybe we shouldn’t have let any of them in. But if she was 18, as she later changed her—she later said she was 18, but she later changed it to say that she was 17—then she’s responsible for all the mistakes and lies concerning her own request.
She’s a very nasty person. I mean, there are so many things they can investigate. I’ve never heard that a congressperson can say, “I’m worth $30 million” …
Sami Winc: One day. And then the next day, not.
Victor Davis Hanson: …and the next year, what, $200,000?
And then they show that the winery had empty barrels, and investors were buying nonexistent inventory. They show the winery, and it’s closed, and her husband seems to be as shady as she is.
And then they had this really strange thing where all she’s been talking about is white privilege and white supremacy for 10 years. And you say to her, “White supremacy, white supremacy.” Then you just married a white guy, you know?
And AOC was saying, “White supremacy, white supremacy. White people are the biggest danger in the United States.” And she just dumped her white boyfriend after, what, eight years.
So it’s really strange how they separate that. I don’t quite understand. You can’t say, on the one hand, that the country is full of—collectively accuse white people of being racist and likely terrorists—and then go marry a white person. You know what I’m saying?
Sami Winc: Isn’t she married to another white person now?
Victor Davis Hanson: Who?
Sami Winc: Isn’t her—
Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah, that’s who. Ilhan Omar married her campaign aide. And she’s under investigation because, when they were dating, she was filtering contracts to him as her campaign helper.
Sami Winc: Money to him?
I just have one question. Forgive my ignorance, but when they say they might be able to prove the DNA, is somebody lurking around the guy who was supposed to be her brother or her husband, maybe trying to get his DNA or something? I mean, how are they—
Victor Davis Hanson: They requested her sister’s, and they went into her garbage and stuff to find—they can find hers. But I suppose somebody went to Britain, where he’s back and tried to get his DNA.
And that will show it.
But again, it’s just she either did it or she didn’t. And it doesn’t matter whether Trump focused on her or Biden did not focus on her and gave her a pass.
But essentially, she’s the one who has most manipulated the DEI thing.
Remember what DEI is, everybody. DEI is an indemnity policy. It’s an insurance policy. You take it out and say you’re a victim, and then you’re free to do whatever you want.
And then when people catch you, you know, you’re racist.
So Karen Bass goes to, what, Ghana or Uganda during the Palisades fires, and people say, “You were just derelict.”
“Oh, you’re a racist.”
The assistant mayor phones in a bomb threat. Bomb threat under house arrest. He’s not even there. You’re racist for saying that.
The water and power woman gets this huge, inflated salary as an incompetent, has hydrants that don’t work and leaves the reservoir drained for months. And people complain, and [the response is], “You’re racist and attacking a Latina.”
The fire woman is completely incompetent, doesn’t get the hydrants fixed and is not proactively doing—“You’re homophobic.”
And so that’s how it works. Everybody has to have some claim on an indemnity policy, and that just empowers people to do stupid things.
Like somebody says, “Victor, I like those—I see you’re wearing kind of ceremonial [items]. Every once in a while, you wear Viking horns, and you kind of have a little Viking sword when you display it, and you’re very proud of your Swedish heritage. And you know how Swedes were poorly treated.”
They were. They were, in some way. They were called dummies and square heads. And I’m kind of exaggerating, as you can see. But we feel bad about it, so you’re not a drunk, you’re not a square head, and we’re going to give you preference in hiring, retention, dorms, graduation—you name it.
Well, then all of a sudden, I’d say, “Hmm, I’m going 70 miles an hour in a 55-mph zone.” And when the cop pulls me over and rolls down the window, I’m going, “I’m not going to do that.”
And that’s what happens. You think your entire spectrum of behavior is protected. And if it’s 30% of the country, you can see what’s going on.
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