The State of the Union… And A Biden-Trump Rematch | GoodFellows With Victor Davis Hanson

>> Speaker 1: You don't understand I could have had class, I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.

>> Bill Whalen: It's Wednesday, March 6, 2024, and welcome back to GoodFellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast examining social, economic, political, and geopolitical considerations.

I'm Bill Whalen, I'm a Hoover distinguished policy fellow, I'll be your moderator today, joined by two of our three usual suspects. Neil Ferguson is not with us, but we are graced by the presence of the grumpy economist himself, John Cochran. And joining us all the way from Tokyo, Ink technology, wonderful, I hate to think what time it is over in the far east.

Our resident optimist, former presidential national security advisor, lieutenant general HR McMaster, both John and HR are Hoover senior fellows. Well, we miss the Neil, we more than make up today with the presence of a GoodFellow fans favorite, and that is the one and only Victor Davis Hanson. Victor is the Hoover institution's Martin and Ely Anderson senior fellow, his focus being classics and military history.

You may already know Victor from his prolific writing, his many appearances on Fox News, or his podcast, the Victor Davis Hanson show. He's also the author of numerous books, including 20 Nineteen's the Case for Trump in 2020. One's the Dying Citizen, How progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America, but wait there's more.

Somehow he's found the time to write yet another book, Victor has it coming out later this spring, the title of it is the End of Everything, How Wars Descended into Annihilation. You can pre order it now on Amazon and help Mister Bezos make even more money. Victor, welcome back to GoodFellows.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Thank you for having me, everyone.

>> Bill Whalen: I left out a very important part of your biography, my friend, and that is the family business. You also run a family farm down in California, San Joaquin Valley. You trade in almonds as I understand it, Victor, California is home to about 80% of the world's supply of almonds.

But the almond business is not doing too well these days, and looking at the rain outside right now, it's not the weather. Is inflation the problem here?

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Partly, it was the stocks during COVID, so we went from 100,000 acres of almonds to 1.6 million in 20 years because of mechanization.

So you can farm an acre of almonds for $2,000 and at 450 a pound for a while it was $10,000 gross an acre. So, big corporations over planted, COVID came, there were supply stained, choppy stoppages, they only last about a year in storage. And India, China, stopped buying or negotiating.

The result of it is the price is $1.40, you need about $1.80 a pound to break even on most production. And they're going, I don't know if you've been long, I five, but they're tearing out thousands of acres of almond.

>> Bill Whalen: Well, fingers crossed, my friend, the industry bounces back.

I'm glad to have you today, Victor, your timing couldn't be better because we're in a kind of interesting crossroads in 2024. Yesterday was Super Tuesday in America for those who are not familiar with the intricacies of American presidential politics. Super Tuesday refers to about a dozen states across the country holding presidential primaries.

A big night for Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who won almost every primary, I think Trump lost only in Vermont, and that was it. Joe Biden somehow managed to lose American Samoa with his 100 votes that were cast in that primary, but both are on their way to their nominations.

Trump is about 80% of the way there in terms of delegates, Biden's about 70% of the way, and this morning both lost their opponents. Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley is suspending her campaign, she's dropping out. On the democratic side, Congressman Dean Phillips ends his gadfly effort, he's dropped out, too.

So, now we're looking at a very historic election in America in this regard, it's the first time since 1956 that we're having a repeat election, the same two candidates running four years afterwards. It's the first time since 1912 that a former president will be on the November ballot.

The first time since 1892 that the former president faces the man who vanquished him four years previously. One other way to look at this, Victor, it's now 243 days until November 5 in American election day. Can you give us a survivor's guide of how to write out the next eight months?

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Well, I don't think Joe Biden, I guess his State of the Union tomorrow night marks his handmark, is candidacy, heating up, but I don't think it's gonna heat up. He doesn't have the pretense of COVID this time around. So, I know this sounds a little crazy, I think there's a genuine question whether he's viable to the convention.

But at the convention, I feel that they're gonna open up the delegates and whether that means, the Obama wing has control of the superdelegates or what. But I don't think that looks good because as you know, Bill, in 72, two weeks after the convention, they had that last minute Jetson of Senator Eagleton.

76, Reagan came on like gangbusters and disrupted, almost beat Jerry Ford. Jerry Ford was very upset, he kind of gave a lukewarm endorsement, and I think that led to Ford's problems in the fall. So, I don't think it's gonna be good for the Democrat. The final thing I'm saying is that I never thought that Donald Trump would pose as a voice of normality.

But because of Biden's temper and his cognitive challenges and his radical agenda, I mean, it's way beyond Obama with an open border and the crime and wanting to ban internal combustion, the foreign policy. He's left a wide lane for Donald Trump to feign sober and judicious conduct and a conservative message that would be very appealing to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't look at it.

 

>> Bill Whalen: So let's focus on that in the second segment of the show, Victor, because you wrote a very good column for American greatness on how Trump can win this election. But, John, let's talk about the State of the Union here, and let's don't get into the speech itself, because by the time most people are watching or listening to this, the speech will have gone down.

Let's talk, though, about the speech in terms of three components that Biden is likely to address. The first one, my friend, is your wheelhouse, and it's economics, and it seems, John, that Bidenomics has given way to Liznomics, or Lizonomics, if you wanna call it. Shrinkflation is the operative word coming out of this White House, they're going after evil corporations for gouging prices and putting too few cookies and crackers into boxes and stuff like that.

John, I want your thoughts on both shrinkflation, but also what exactly the state of this economy is.

>> John H. Cochrane: Well, I'm pleased that you're talking about policy cuz, I think this whole election is gonna be a complete crazy ride. I think the State of the union address will be the first one in which nobody's paying any attention to what's actually said, which is all written by a committee.

But everybody's gonna be playing amateur gerontologist to see just what the state of Biden's mental capacities is, that'll be the news about it. But since you brought it up, there is a drumbeat of why are the little Hoipeloi so insufficiently grateful for all the wonders that Biden has done for them with Bidenomics.

The current lines and the previews of the speech say they will talk a lot about inflation. Now, I may inform our listeners, inflation is very simple. You print up $5 trillion worth of money, you hand it out, you get inflation. This has been known since the time of Emperor Diocletian, I hope I'll get my historical reference right there, Victor.

And of course, what's been known historically is what you do next, which is you ignore that fact and you go on a witch hunt. And the witch hunt is for greedflation, shrinkflation, price gouging, monopoly and all the rest of it, and our administration is on that witch hunt.

I thought the most interesting one I saw is promotion of competition in agricultural markets. You'll be glad to, To see that victor, of course, our government wants competition in agricultural markets, but also imposes price controls and import quotas. So the left hand and the right hand haven't quite agreed on that.

Now, this is, I think, why is the message of frankflation and greenflation and vitamix failing? People aren't dumb. And this witch hunt has been going on for 2000 years. Usually we go after the middlemen, the monopolist, the greed, and then the Jews, and they'll probably do that one, too, as the way things are going.

But it shows to the average American that these people don't know what they're doing, that they view it all entirely in terms of political spin. And maybe we can invent some price controls or drug price controls or something to blame it on the greedy monopolists and do something.

But if you're an average almond grower, you understand where inflation comes from, and you don't think that more price controls or greedflation or shrink out of the federal government is going to make it our business. So it shows them political, it shows them incompetent. Maybe they understand where inflation comes from and they're lying to us, or they don't understand where inflation comes from.

And it shows that they disdain the intelligence of the average voter, which is, I think, why a lot of people are turning to Trump.

>> Bill Whalen: HR, let's turn to foreign policy. Now, I'd argue this is probably the most important foreign policy component of a state of the union last 20 years, since probably the first term of Bush 43.

I'd like you to do two things. First, let's talk about data light between Biden and Trump on the topic of Israel. And then let's get into Ukraine. And, Victor, I want you to chime in, especially on Ukraine, because John and I are especially curious as Dallas relates to that curious thing in Congress called NaTCon.

So, first of all, HR, for the discerning voter who's trying to figure out policy difference between these two candidates, how do they differ on Israel?

>> H.R McMaster: Well, I think it's Israel in context. I think what the disaster of the Biden administration is on foreign policy, I mean, there are many of them, but you have to trace it back to the humiliating withdrawal and surrender to a terrorist organization, to be fair, occurred across both administrations.

The Trump administration, with this agreement in February of 2020. But the Biden administration is saying, well, we couldn't change that. Well, they could change every other Trump policy, including opening the borders and so forth. So here's what I think is I think weakness is provocative, and the Biden administration has been very effective at projecting weakness.

I think there's a direct line between the withdrawal and surrender and humiliation in Afghanistan to the reinvasion of Ukraine. And then across all of this time, you have the supplication to the Iranians by the Biden administration in an effort to resurrect the already dead Iran nuclear deal under the same assumption that drove Obama policy.

Which was the belief that Iran, if they're welcome to back in, if the supreme leader has welcomed back into the international community that he'll change his behavior. In fact, they were actually organizing an effort to cede power to Iran in the region as a balance against some of our friends and partners in the region, including the Emiratis and the Saudis.

This created the perception of profound weakness, as well as the difficult relationship between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now, there are other sources of perception of weakness as well, internal to Israel with the judicial reform movement and the opposition to it. But the supreme leader essentially said, hey, I wanna cross this off my bucket list, destroy Israel.

And he activated the Ring of Fire strategy initiated on October 7th. And, of course, this isn't the only action that's been taken against Israel. There have been, prior to that, continuing attacks from Hezbollah and southern Lebanon, various acts of violence in the West bank that are continuing, and also the threat of Iran assembling a proxy army on the border of Israel across the Golan in Syria.

It's extended, obviously across the region now with the Houthis involved and the mobilization of various Iranian militias in the region, where did this come from? It came from the perception of weakness. The question is, if you compare that Biden approach, disastrous approach to the Middle east with President Trump, the question is, what President Trump are we going to get?

Are we going to get the President Trump, who understood that he had to force a choice in Iran, hey, either choose to be part of the international community, or we're gonna isolate you financially and economically. And we're gonna stand up to you militarily, which was, of course, typified most dramatically with the killing of Qasem Soleimani and Abu Madi al Mohandas in Baghdad.

But what did he do after that? He took counsel of his fears. He backed off. He didn't respond to a number of acts of Iranian aggression, I think about 100 of them, against acts of war, I would say against us personnel and facilities, including the shoot down of a drone from Iranian soil.

So I think what cuts across both administrations is this perception of weakness vis a vis Iran is what has provoked Iran, because we don't act like we know what the return address is. I think if you get the President Trump of 2017 and 18 and into 19, you have a fundamental shift in policy in the Middle East to our benefit, that strengthens Israel's defense in what was already going to be a multi year war.

We were in a multi year war in the Middle East already. I'm waiting to hear what are President Biden's, what is he gonna say about that and what interests are at stake and what our actions should be and how we should bring others. And what does President Trump, candidate Trump gonna say about that?

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Well, I agree with almost all of what HR said. There is a rivalry or schism among the MAGA people between what I would call Taft isolationist and what I would call Jacksonians. No better friend, no punitive people. The people who wanted, who were, I advised him to take out Soleimani, to bomb ISIS back to the Stone Age, to declare the Houthis a terrorist organization, to cut off Hamas from, move the embassy, give the Golan heights, all of that was very good.

And I think there's a war for the hearts and minds of the Trump people between those two groups. And that goes to Ukraine, where there's a difference between traditional Republicans in the Congress, some of them, and Trump is that schism exists from Ukraine. But I don't think Trump is going to cut Ukraine off.

I don't think he's an isolationist in that fashion. But I don't think, because he's so sensitive to the interventionist, optional endless war narrative, that he is going to give Ukraine the wherewithal under the auspices of strategic necessity, that would be necessary to defeat Russia. And that would be the wherewithal to attack targets within Russia, which would have to be done if you're gonna stop it.

I don't think he's gonna do that. He'll probably continue the aid, but call it an alone or something, some gimmick like that. But I wanna say one other thing very quickly. There is a very big, and I'm speaking to someone that supports giving Ukraine money and defense to defend its territorial integrity.

But there's a big difference the way that people look at Ukraine and Israel. I mean, no one is calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Nobody says to Zelensky, as they do to Netanyahu, you have to have a ceasefire. No one tells Zelensky, when you shoot off a high Mars rocket, you better text people or you better drop leaflets to avoid a collateral damage.

No one is telling Zelensky as they told Netanyahu, you better have a wartime government that has a bipartisan consensus, a wartime cabinet with the opposition. Zelensky Canceled elections, he canceled political parties, he suspended habeas corpus in a lot of Ukraine. And I'm not criticizing, I'm just saying that we don't, nobody is saying to Zelensky, you've got to be proportionate.

That's insanity for anybody to fight a war proportionately, it ends up like the 100 years' war or Vietnam. So, I don't know why that difference there, I have my suspicions, but there's no consistency on the way that a lot of people on the left and the right put pressure on Israel in about eight key areas, they wouldn't dare say that to Ukraine.

I'll just finish with Ukraine, I'm a little worried because I think the people I've talked to suggest there may be now August, they said there were 600,000 combined dead and wounded. And now we're hearing totals of 700, if it continues in this deadlock, we'll probably have a million pretty soon.

We had a ten-month war in Verdun from February 1916 to December, and the total German and French dead was 700,000 wounded dead, French and German. And when the battle end, it was heroic, they shall not pass. And all that heroic French defense, great, it saved the western front, but they ended up right where they were when they started.

And no one is talking about that, the population of Ukraine has gone from 44 million probably to 35 million, they say it'll get down to 30 million. And I don't know if we have a creative solution that allows some type of cessation without rewarding Putin. And what Zelensky and Putin talked to in February or March of 2022, I don't think it's still viable.

But you hear people say it was never the position of Obama, Trump, Biden to get back Crimea and Donbas before the war, Zelensky said he couldn't do it. Is there a possibility that you institutionalize what was never gonna go back for the last ten years, Crimea and the Donbas, and then you force Putin to go back to where he was in February of 2020.

You don't put Ukraine in NATO, but you arm it to the teeth so that it would be stupid to try it again. I don't know if that's what I hear, that's the only possible way to stop the carnage unless you go full bore. And that's you hear they need 1000 Abrams tanks, they need 150 F16, and you want to get into a, a real, a real what would, we're not doing what's necessary to win, if that's what we're doing.

But we're doing what's necessary to keep the killing going for a long time, so I suggest if you wanna win, you have to give them more. And if you wanna stop the killing, you have to find some kind of an agreement. And the question is an armistice that doesn't leave a winner or loser, is that bad than a continued deadlock that kills a million people?

And I don't have the answer for that.

>> Bill Whalen: So, two questions for you, first, HR, you hear republican senators now uttering the phrase time for a negotiated settlement. That would seem to be an opportunity to make the argument for arms, because the idea of a negotiated settlement is you wanna give Zelenskyy as much leverage as he can have against Putin, so you send him more weapons.

But, Victor, you suggest that Trump, at the end of the day, will be in favor of more aid to Ukraine. What happens, though, when he comes out and says, I'm in favor of more aides and their weapons? What, to Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and that rump little group of House Republicans who seem opposed to this, will they go along with him?

Or they just generally want to pound sand against anyone who tell them what to do?

>> Victor Davis Hanson: That depends on the election, if Donald Trump wins 50 seats in the House or 40 seats and takes the Senate, Matt Gates will nod and say that there's no daylight between him and Trump, no matter what he does.

But if he doesn't, then, yeah, they have problems, I don't think that Trump is going to give them the weapons that would do what a classical military strategist, what HR would think that would be necessary to win. And that would be to a lot more damage to the Russian military, because Trump, he seems, I mean, everybody discounts all of these threats that Putin makes and all these crazy people in the Russian parliament.

But at some point, if they feel they are going to, I don't think they're going to allow themselves to be expelled from Ukraine without a serious crazy retaliation. And I don't think we would in 1962, when Cuba, all of a sudden, our little protectorate mafia run, 1959, we get a communist dictatorship.

Three years later, we get missiles pointed at us and we just arbitrarily tell the Khrushchev Soviets that's we're not gonna allow that, period. And we went to DEfcoN four-

>> John H. Cochrane: No one supported nuclear missiles in Ukraine.

>> H.R McMaster: I was going to say, Victor, I disagree with you on this, I think the party that has the most to fear from escalation is Putin.

And I think the reason why Putin has made these recent threats to escalate vertically again is, again, because of this perception of weakness. The divisions that he's seen that have prevented us from providing sustained support to the Ukrainians.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: You mean from the Americans or the Europeans?

>> H.R McMaster: From the Americans, from the Americans.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I don't think the European, I think the Europeans have had it.

>> H.R McMaster: Well, the Europeans are stepping up, actually, and have provided significant economic assistance to $60 billion bill or so that passed on the European Union recently. So I think that the perception of weakness is what makes Putin threaten more.

But if escalation would demonstrate how weak he is, we have to remember, an ex-hot dog salesman and ex-con marched on Moscow, shot down, I think, six or seven aircraft. They were cratering the roads on the way to Moscow.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I know, but what happened, I know, but we were told the spring offensive, it went on for six months.

And I never understood the logic of a country that has 30 million people versus 144 trying to do Ecuadorian or patent breakthrough with that Maginot line of mine.

>> H.R McMaster: I think we're talking about two separate things here in terms of Ukraine, it's obviously their capability times their will.

And you're right to raise this concern about Ukrainian capacity, right? I think the demographic or the statistic that is relevant is the number of military age people who are willing to serve in combat in both Russia and Ukraine. And to use the 1916 analogy, I think the Russians could be on the brink of something akin to the French army mutiny in World War one, where they broke themselves in the effort to penetrate the defenses in Verdun and elsewhere.

And I think what happened with Ukraine is you had the equivalent of the novel offensive, where they thought they had the solution, this was novels term, remember? I have the solution, well, he didn't have the solution, and he impaled the French army on Germany's defenses, took losses until the army mutanteed.

And this is when Petan came in before he became a turncoat, he was an effective general officer. And so when we talk about the stalemate of the war, this is a temporary condition. And of course, situations can change quite dramatically in terms of the peace idea. The idea that there can be a ceasefire that seeds a portion of Ukraine's territory, Crimea, and portions of the east to Russia, I just don't think- Think it's feasible because Putin won't stop, Putin, even if he were to agree to something like he agreed to the mince agreement, he'll just break it and continue to try to choke Ukraine out.

And of course the Ukrainians, I mean, after, okay, we're talking about tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped. We're talking about mass murder of the Ukrainian people, mass rapes, war crimes of unimaginable.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I understand all that, I just wonder if Ukraine is gonna be stronger now or it's going to be stronger in a year from now because its population is declining radically.

And when you talk to Ukrainian people about it, they say the problem is not the weapons, they're running out of people, and that's the Russian strategy. And I just don't know what is necessary for this diminishing manpower pool. And this is why people like Krazy McCrone say that there might be troops there, but what is necessary strategically, tactically, to defeat the Russian army?

 

>> John H. Cochrane: Let me add it here, too.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Cuz I don't know HR, what would be necessary? And I don't mean that sarcastic. No, here's sincerely-

>> John H. Cochrane: The Ukrainians are not trying to invade Russia and take Moscow. So the analogy is, they're just trying to take back small parts of their own country.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Yes, but they haven't been able to do it for ten years, not since 2014.

>> John H. Cochrane: When you're adding up who has population, so forth, and the objective, the objective of the Ukrainians is not to roll tanks the Moscow.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: What is the objectives? Does it get back to February or-

 

>> John H. Cochrane: In Crimea.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Before 2014.

>> John H. Cochrane: Yeah, which we said, we respect these, we promised your territorial integrity in terms of if you got-

>> Victor Davis Hanson: But there was a reason they didn't do that in 2014, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

>> John H. Cochrane: You're saying they're running out of people.

They're running out of people because they don't have weapons. A modern combined arms offensive would not be this horrendous meat grinder. And it is the fact that we're not letting them have the proper weapons to do it that is causing this amazing loss of life in Ukraine. So properly done, this would not be meat grinder.

And the Democrat, there are actually a lot of draft age men left in Ukraine, so with proper weapons and the will to do it, I disagree that this is just-

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Well, I remember a year ago very quickly at our military history when, and I have the utmost respect for Peter Mansoor and he was very sincere.

So people said, what do they need to make the spring offensive work. And he said, they need 1000 Abram tanks and they need 150 F16s. Then he went on and everybody had their jaw open and said, my God, that's larger than many of the European military, I said, exactly.

But where you get the political support for that? And is that what I'd like to hear from HR, just very briefly, and I don't mean this sarcastic, I mean it sincerely. What do you think they would need and could do to get the Russian army out of where they were prior to 2014?

 

>> H.R McMaster: There are two fundamental military objectives. The first is to provide for the Ukrainians to be able to stop the onslaught, to prevent Russia from gaining additional territory. But also to stop the Russians from continuing the attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure, against Ukrainian civilians and so forth. And that's a range of capabilities that we could actually quite easily provide, Victor.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: What would that be? So those high mars or things like that?

>> H.R McMaster: Well, there's tiered and layered air defense capabilities, certainly some of which are relatively inexpensive because they're oriented on point areas. Or bounded geographic areas like port facilities, for example. And then there's the long range precision fires, which you've heard much debated, like you heard the Biden administration debate, every single capability that went to the Ukrainians, right?

Should we provide them with more javelins? Gosh, I don't know, hand wringing. Should we provide them with mobile, protected firepower, tanks and Bradleys? Hand wringing. Should we provide them with additional air defense capabilities, but beyond the short range air defense capabilities? Should we provide them with long range fires and artillery and how much?

And so one of the reasons we're at the point at which we are is that people kind of ignored the laws of physics in terms of how long it takes to get capabilities there. And then what it takes to integrate those capabilities into combined arms units that can conduct really what is the most difficult task in combat.

Which is to sustain a penetration and an offensive through a tiered and defense in depth, which is what the Russians were able to prepare. This is what Carl von Clausewitz observed about war. It's so true that the offensive is the decisive form of war, but the defensive is the strongest form of war.

So at the very least, we can bolster Ukraine's defenses now and help them build the capacity at some point in the future to conduct a counteroffensive. Clausewitz also said that the counterattack, what he called the flashing sword of vengeance, is the best moment for the defense. Right now the Russians are impaling themselves on Ukrainian defenses.

Now sadly, Ukrainians are constrained in terms of the amount of ammunition that they can use, this is around Advika and so forth. But the Russians have taken the highest number of casualties per day in these recent offenses. I don't think it's sustainable, Viktor, I hear from people, hey, the Russians are tough, the Russians used to.

But you know what their motivation is? Their motivation is GRU or SVR guy behind them with a pistol is going to shoot him in the head.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I know, but I'm very worried very quickly, just, I'm worried because we were told that the sanctions would strangle Russia, the oil.

And what's worrisome now is that while this is going on, we're creating this next. I know everybody talks about it, but we've got China, Russia, we got Iran supplying weapons, we've got the southern hemisphere almost, and lockstep, not with us. We've got places like Vietnam that are hosting Russian people coming over.

We have the Middle east people. And India even is triangulating. And it doesn't seem that we are projecting the idea that Ukraine is winning, Russia's on the losing side and you should join the winners. It seems like the opposite is true.

>> John H. Cochrane: I think that's HR's point.

>> H.R McMaster: I've got to quickly win this thing, that's my point.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: So the point is, how do you reverse this impression?

>> H.R McMaster: This is all related to our inability to sustain support to Ukraine. So I'm in Tokyo, Japan right now, and what I'm hearing is that if the United States doesn't support Ukraine, your influence here is gonna be vastly diminished.

One of the reasons why you see this kind of hedging activity, engaging the Russians and the Chinese is because we are not viewed as reliable. And this has to do, at the moment with the ability to sustain support for Ukraine. But it also has to do, again to go back to the surrender, the self defeat is what it really was with the Taliban.

So if America is going to surrender to a terrorist organization, how can they be the reliable partner in any of these other contests? India, you mentioned India, India looks over its shoulder. They have Chinese soldiers bludgeoning Indian soldiers to death on the Himalayan frontier. Does America have our back in South Asia?

No, they left South Asia, they left Afghanistan. Who is the only power they can hedge with when they have two hostile nuclear countries on the border? Its Russia, right? So, Our lack of resolve, Victor, our willingness-.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: That transcends and I've been a big critic. I mean, the Chinese, all these things were incremental.

The chinese balloon, the way we courted Iran, the Afghanistan debacle, it all created this picture that convinced Putin, saying that we wouldn't react if it was a minor invasion. I agree with you entirely, we invited him in, and we're now into this. We've given Ukraine enough stuff so they can survive, but not enough so they can win.

And we've got a verdun on our hands.

>> H.R McMaster: So change that.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: we have to all time on the rights and wrongs of it.

>> John H. Cochrane: And think of the politics of it, which is where we started. Clearly, it`s not gonna move, it sounds like Trump and the congressional Republicans aren't gonna do it either.

So we're kind of in a hopeless mess here.

>> H.R McMaster: And Victor just to make a couple points, I think you're right about how we should be concerned about this war going on, right? It's a costly war but I think that the cost of surrender, which I think any kind of a ceasefire at this stage that we would try to impose on the Ukrainians by constraining our support to them would be much higher than the continuation of the war.

The Ukrainians would, I think, agree with that. So I think what`s important to recognize is that wars do not remain static in perpetuity as World War I ended as a war of maneuver. And so I think it`s easy to imagine that Russia not being able to sustain this effort.

They`ve impaled themselves on Ukrainian defenses and Vladimir Putin doesn`t look very strong to me right now, Victor. And we could talk more about this with some of our colleagues, Stephen Cock and others. But I think the murder of Navalny and then they're arresting people for laying flowrs.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I know.

 

>> H.R McMaster: I mean, and they still have more people in their terms of security services.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: What I'm saying is, and John brought it up, the political ramification, that argument has not resonated. So when you look at the polls, I think the majority do not wanna cut off Ukraine, but they do not wanna fund the necessary wherewithal because that argument has not been made.

 

>> H.R McMaster: This is such an important point, you're so right. But who should make that argument, the president? And remember when Zelensky visited, do you remember that statement that they made?

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I think it was the east room.

>> H.R McMaster: It was disastrous, not only because the president didn't make the case in a coherent manner, but he turned it immediately into a partisan issue.

He used the opportunity to bludgeon the Republicans instead of saying, this is why all Americans. So remember, he was supposed to be the unifier, right? And he's not, this is something we should all be able to get behind. And he's not making the case effective, he's not.

>> John H. Cochrane: Let me ask a question of victor, cuz you're a representative from Trump land and so forth.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I have differences with all candidates.

>> John H. Cochrane: No, I know you do.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: You keep saying that I'm a rubber stamp.

>> John H. Cochrane: No, I don't mean that.

>> H.R McMaster: No, no, you understand it. I think you understand it, you understand the movement very well.

>> John H. Cochrane: So there is this isolationist movement.

Do they not wanna support Ukraine because they think we shouldn't? Or because they worry, they're all for America, but they worry that it will be executed incompetently and that we don't have the state?

>> Victor Davis Hanson: No, the reason is they look at this Biden administration and they feel that the citizen is second.

In other words, they're running up this $36 trillion deficit and they're flying illegal Aliens all over the country, or they're giving them, in here, California, free health care. They're giving them $10,000, they're doing everything that they don't do for citizens. They look at the military and they, they say, okay, I will.

That was what the House Republicans who really wanted to give something, most of them wanted to give aid to Ukraine, but politically they had to say, well, let's fix the first border first. That would be very easy, it didn't incur any money. It didn't require any new legislation, all they had to do was go back to the 90 executive orders that he got rid of and just reinstate.

And they could have stopped it, they could do it in a week. Instead, they cooked up this idea, we'll let in 5000 before we have a threshold, and we're gonna do all. They didn't need to do any of that. So their attitude is, every time a serious crisis comes up in the United States, our budget, 100,000 fentanyl deaths, we don't solve the problem.

And then when you try to explain to them, this is a very serious problem with Russia and China, this new access that will affect your security, to them, that is abstract. What's concrete is we're going broke, we have an open border. We don't care about citizens, we put them second and that Ukrainian feeds into that.

And so if you're gonna support Ukraine, I think it would be wise to say, I support Ukraine. I want the border closed now, we don't need any new laws, no new money. Just follow the law and they could do it. And I think that's why I think Donald Trump, I have a lot more confidence in him than Biden because he understands that, he will close the border on day one.

And that will give a lot of leverage for him to have a kind of a Jacksonian. I wanna protect Americans and I wanna stop threats to our national security. He is a Jacksonian, he did it. Until I think H.R is right, the Wishiwashi will leave 3500 troops in Afghanistan.

It left it open to what Biden did but otherwise, I thought, I mean, what do you object to? We got out of the Iran, Iran was neutered when Biden came in and Hamas was neutered and Putin was neutered. And so nobody wanted to screw around with this. I didn't think until-.

 

>> H.R McMaster: I would say, victor, I agree with 90% of that. I do think what he did is he listened to some people who wanted him to actually replicate the Obama approach to the Middle east, right, the pivot out of the Middle east. And so the problem is President Trump has this kind of dissonance about him, right, he understands the importance of defeating Jihadist terrorists like Hamas, right?

And I've seen him so incensed, remember the Manchester bomb, the Manchester terrorist attack, for example, he was so angry about that. But he turned that into real progress on constraining terrorist financing, on going after Jihadist terrorist groups more effectively from a multinational perspective. Enlisting the Saudis in the effort to isolate these terrorist organizations from ideological support, the effort to isolate them financially and so forth.

So that`s all positive but then he also had this impulse to just disengage from the Middle east. He would say, hey, its just a mishmash of crap. And he listened to people, I think, who didnt` maybe fully understand that if you think that problems in the Middle east can be contained there, you're wrong.

We're seeing that now, obviously. And then just when you think things can't get worse in the Middle east, they actually can. And the US disengagement from the region is not the answer. We're not gonna solve that region's problems no way in hell. But our disengagement from it in the last couple of years of the Trump administration, I think did embolden Iran, who got back up off the mat after the Soleimani strike.

So I guess the question is, Victor, what Donald Trump do we get? What should we be listening for? You've just revived.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I know we got to have, we have to deal. But I would just say that I talked to a very high Israeli official and he wrote out twelve things that he said he would never get ever.

No Israeli would ever get them. Something like the Abrams accord, cutting off a mosque, get out of the Iran deal, declare the Houthis side with them against Hezbollah on natural gas stuff, Golan Heights, move the. And for the first time in history, they got all of them and at great political cost to him.

And so what I'm saying is that you can say that the last year, but if you take that four year regnum and you compare it with the last 50 years. There has been no stronger advocate of Israel who went out on a limb.

>> H.R McMaster: I agree with that.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: And concretely.

>> H.R McMaster: I would add to that, Victor, the move of the embassy to Jerusalem, the Abraham Accords.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Yes.

>> H.R McMaster: And I would add the cutoff of the support to UNRA, right. This organization.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Absolutely. 700 million. 700 million.

>> H.R McMaster: And you know who was in the forefront of that too, sadly, was Nikki Haley was in the forefront of that.

I was really, that was her initiative. So I agree with you. And Victor, we worked with Israelis very closely, I think in a way that was unprecedented, to mobilize our relative advantages against Iran's threat network in the region. And all of that dissipated under the Biden administration. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I do think at the end he had these Iago figures in his ear all the time who I think.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I think they were very worried about getting reelected. Unfortunately, in COVID and they the same argument you're making is applicable to why did he keep Fauci and Birx against the advice of people like Jay and Scott on the quarantine. It was the same thing. It was a mistake, anyway, I'm sorry, Bill.

 

>> H.R McMaster: Hey, Bill, I'm gonna just ask Victor one more question. Because Victor, we were talking the other day you're a superstar, Victor. Every time I go anywhere, they're like, do you know Victor Davis Hansen? I'm gonna say, hey, man, my office is next to him.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: That can be bad.

 

>> H.R McMaster: It gives me, it gives me a lot of credit.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: People ask me about you guys all the time.

>> H.R McMaster: So Victor you're just Victor revising. You just revised your book. You have a new edition coming out. Could you maybe explain that effort? And then what changed?

How do you think, that those who support him, how that has that movement evolved and how has he evolved? What are the chuck, if you could just.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: There's two things. Yeah, there's, I wrote a 14,000 word introduction that comes out in August. He's been the benefit beneficiary.

First of all, you got to start with, he didn't do anything. He did stuff but before you get to that, very quickly, Joe Biden was, good old Joe Biden from Scranton. That was the, was the supposedly moderate veneer for this Jacobin agenda that blew up. And he's, he's got historic lows.

He's got corruption problems, he's got cognitive problems. He's down at 33% in some polls. And every one of these issues is polling, and Bill knows better than I do, below 40%, 50% below. And so people are looking, believe it or not, they look at Trump and they see all of this outburst of Biden and get off the grass kind of dementia.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Trump nostalgia, Victor.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Yes, and they're looking at Trump. And I never thought this, but this is the most remarkable political comeback since Richard Nixon in 62. He comes off as the return to normalcy. And if he can do that and say, you guys want the border, of course you do.

You want an end of crime, yeah. You want deterrence abroad. I'm the normal guy. This guy was the revolutionary. And he's mean and he angry and he yells and he can discipline himself like he did after the Iowa.

>> Bill Whalen: Victor, let me push back.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: But not after New Hampshire, he can win.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Let me push back, Victor, because Trump's gonna be spending a lot of time between now, the next 243 days, in and out of courts. And this is not gonna go into traffic court. He's gonna be in courts in New York, where they're questioning his marital fidelity, having just questioned his fiscal manhood.

He's gonna be in courts in Georgia and Washington D, where they're basically questioning his patriotism. This is lawfare, which I know John wants to talk about. We'll get into that. So here's the question. First of all, you mentioned polling, Victor. There was a very fascinating New York Times Sienna poll over the weekend.

Biden's at 39% positive and about 54% negative, 15 points underwater. Trump's prompt's approval is five points better, 44. And the numbers are devastating. When you ask Americans, just what has Biden done for me or his policies, working with me, it's a hell scenario for him. But here's the question, Victor.

Trump is gonna be going into court in very personal ways. And this is kind of lawfare. And John and I think disagree on lawfare, by the way. I think it's been a very smart strategy in at least two regards. While John will say it's failed in terms of kicking off the ballot, I'll say it's done two things.

One Victor, it cleared the republican field before lawfare kicked in, DeSantis had a pretty good shot at taking. Trump was struggling, and then that ended. And then secondly, it really gets under Trump's skin. It deranges him. So this is my question, Victor. You're absolutely right. If he can stay on the high road and can stay on the message as he was at the end of 2016, yeah, he's got a shot.

But when he's going in and out of court constantly and he's being just screwed with on a very personal basis, he's gonna go ape. So how do you think? How are you gonna get good Trump? Or this could be very tempting on almost a daily basis to be bad Trump.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: And you're right about that, that's a temptation. And they're trying to obviously bankrupt him and destroy his mental and physical health. But if you look at the five cases very carefully, and I think people, the public are aware of them, the Fani Willis case is blowing up.

They had this testimony today. They're gonna move that. They're gonna be disbarred, all three of them, and they're gonna move that case to a different jurisdiction that will drop it. Jack Smith may or may not win, but he's got two problems. One is he's got the president of the United States who removed classified files to four locations over 30 years.

And who in 2017, admitted on tape that he had classified files in his possession, and he didn't come forward for six years. And yet it's gonna be very hard to prosecute the leading contender when the president has got more exposure in Biden, the insurrection. I don't think that's gonna go anywhere.

If you look at Letitia James, if that is not reversed on appeal, you don't have a country. They charge him with a crime that had never been charged about anybody else, the consumer fraud bill and then she. They passed a law, Victor.

>> H.R McMaster: They passed a law to suspend the statute of limitations.

I know that was on Jean Carroll.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah, that was a bill of attainder on Jean Carroll. It was all done. She had no chance. A New York legislature passed a bill saying that for one year only you could suspend the statute of limitations on sexual assault and then there was no jury in the judge Kaplan case with Jean Carroll.

There was no jury and the latitude James Alvin Bragg has taken a federal offense supposedly a campaign finance violation with a non disclosure form and turned it in somehow to a state offense. So I think there's a 50,50 chance that all of them will be reversed or they'll gonna dissipate but even if they aren't John's got a good point.

They continue to give empathy because they're not just neutral they're so outrageous that everybody who hates Trump says that still is outrageous. The other thing about his money, you're right that he's got $400 million in cash and he owes half a billion dollars with penalties and legal fees.

And he's gonna have another half a billion all total but if this. Truth Social goes through. I don't know how much stock he can sell before the price collapses. But it could be a five or $6 billion deal. He might be able to get another 100 billion or 50 billion or something, who knows?

I mean million, not billion, but my point is that compared to the Democrats problem with a non compos mentis candidate that they have to get rid of at the convention with a black woman as the vice president. And given the history of what happened when you screw around the convention, it seems to me that in a comparative sense, for the first time in a long time, he's in the driver's seat vis a vis Biden, and he wasn't before.

And you're absolutely right, DeSantis was four points ahead of him until these lawfare things started. He's got a lot better people around him, too, Bill.

>> Bill Whalen: Victor, tell me how the Democrats could cleanly remove Joe Biden, because the fact is Kamala Harris will not go gently into that good night.

And you have at least four or five democratic governors who their own delegations want to get in, it'll be a mess.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah, I think it'll be a 19th century convention where I don't know the role of the super delegates or who controlled them. But there will be, they're gonna have to release the delegates and they're gonna have to vote, and then they're gonna have to say, a proud black woman.

We wanted her to win, but she didn't get enough delegates. And therefore, that's it.

>> Bill Whalen: Let's wrap up the segment on this question, Victor. So that convention scenario begs the question of who controls the Democratic Party? Does someone like Barack Obama holds sway? Is it labor unions? Is it the sitting president?

But conversely, on the republican side, I was gonna ask you if Donald Trump should have given the response to the state of the union. Just because republican party, who represents the republican party, is it now the nominee in waiting or Republicans still searching for a leader?

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah, well, it's going to be the republican nominee in waiting.

And Nikki Haley can say all she wants, but she will endorse him. She has two choices, if she does not endorse him and he wins, she's out. If she does not endorse him and lose, she's blamed. If she endorses him and he loses, she's still viable in 2020.

If she endorses him and he wins, she's in a good position. That's a no brainer, and she'll make that decision after her pride as Auschwitz, maybe in another month or two. So he's the head of the party. They're the people who are controlling the Democratic Party, are the Obama team, the Obama appointments that are in the Biden administration.

And the people like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or the squad, it's the hard left, and Obama's the most prominent person there. And they communicate and they made a faustian bargain that they got a moderate veneer to push down the hardest left agenda in the generation or two.

It's falling apart because they calculated wrong. They thought Joe Biden would be viable for four years, and he's not.

>> John H. Cochrane: I just wanna add that that's right, because I read a very interesting thing, actually, in the New York Times. Everyone underestimates Trump because of his personality and the Twitter and all the craziness surrounding him.

Trump, this is an amazing political compact, and Trump has turned out to be an amazing politician. What the Times wrote with, of course, how terrible this was, how he went and got every single Republican to endorse him. Now, that's the sort of thing politicians do. But basically every member of Congress, he is in charge of the Republican Party in the way a traditional politician puts himself in charge of a party, and that's a facts.

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: You're absolutely right, when you talk to him, Bill, you end up talking to people around him, like Devin Nunes or Robert O'Brien or people like the Scaramuccis, Omaroso, Steve Bannon, they're not here this time. And they've got the Heritage foundation, got a contract with America. They're going through 20,000 potential appointees.

So I think that he's learned his lesson. But Trump is Trump, and he's capable of saying anything, anywhere, anytime, to anyone. But I think he knows now that given the Biden radicalism, he has an avenue to be the restorer of civilization or normality. And he's got people around him who are telling him that every moment, every moment.

 

>> Bill Whalen: HR, you get the last word, and here it is, 243 more days of this. Are you thinking about Tokyo long term? Can you paddleboard and Tokyo Bay?

>> H.R McMaster: Yeah, I'll tell you, it's just, it is regrettable that we wound up, I think, with choices that the vast Americans, majority of Americans, would rather not have to make, right?

It's a rematch, but this is not the thrill in Manila this is not, this is not Ali Frazier by any means. And so I guess what is the best we can do? I just wonder which Donald Trump shows up on each day. It's quite clear that Donald Trump does prioritize what's best for Donald Trump.

When that prioritization aligns with the interests of the country, that's really great. And he can make great decisions, he can make tough decisions, but oftentimes he can't stick with those decisions. And the way that he is most easily manipulated, and this is not a flash or news flash or anything, is that people tell him, hey, this will look weak to your base, this is gonna alienate your base.

And he's so easy to play that way that that prevents him from getting to the politics of addition to bring more people in to a coalition, he just doubles down.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I wrote that column on Monday, that very column. I agree 100% with you. He needs five to seven percent, three to seven of independence, Reagan, old Rambid, whatever you call him, perolis.

He needs suburbanites, he needs another three or five percent. And he's got to do it by unifying. He's got to call up Haley and say, bygones are bygones. I'll give you two months, endorse the. And we'll bring up, he's got to do that. He's got to do it all across the board.

He knows that.

>> H.R McMaster: Get rid of words like retribution.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Well, he did the other day. He said, my retribution is success. He didn't say, so I think there's people around him that are telling him that message nonstop. But we're dealing with a person who, we've never had this in America.

Take a guy off the bat, try to take the leading candidate off the ballot, go into five different criminal and civil suits to destroy his, outlaw his business, we've never seen anything like this. This goes way beyond.

>> John H. Cochrane: Bloom about the law fair situation. Every part of this election is gonna be in the court.

Every court decision is gonna be protested. If the House goes republicans, they are gonna not certify it cuz he's an insurrectionist.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: It's gonna be something that we've never seen before. It's gonna be the nastiest, and there's gonna be more money to spent against Donald Trump than we've ever seen.

 

>> H.R McMaster: can I bring in your training as a classicist here?

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Yes.

>> H.R McMaster: Can we get Trump to take counsel from the stoic philosophers? Can he get, can he, can he just focus on what he can control instead of, you know, getting distracted all the time and being his own worst enemy?

What do you think the prospects are of that?

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I think he can mitigate that. But the reason that he got where he is is that he was unpredictable and fiery, and he conveyed a certain common man that I'm speaking for. So, yeah, you're right, he is a captive of his base, but he can be very funny.

When he said, when his, tragically, his brother died of alcoholism, they ask him, why didn't you drink. And he said, can you imagine what I would be like if I drank? It was stuff like that, he does. So we all appeal to the better angels of his. He has great abilities, but he has this tendency to get angry and self destruct.

And that we've got leaders like it, but remember one thing. I think everybody, if we just ignore the media, there has been an effort to use the FBI to hire out social media, to forge a document in the FISA court, to lie under oath. And when you have people like James Comey or John Brennan or James Clapper lying under oath repeatedly, it's the weaponization of the institutions on the left, on the idea of, we're gonna change the filibuster, the electoral college, bring in new states, we're gonna do all of these things because our noble means justify our normal ends, justify any means necessary.

So we're in a cultural political revolution almost. And it's directed at him.

>> H.R McMaster: Also, though, of course, he directed an attack on our own institutions as well, right? So it's just like the worst of all worlds.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: He did, but it was rhetorical, but the funny thing

>> John H. Cochrane: From within

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah, the FBI didn't, under Trump, go after individual people.

The FBI, you didn't get, Donald Trump didn't call up 51 former CIA officers and say, I want you to lie right before the debate and you gotta say this is true. He didn't do that. He appointed a special counsel. And the special counsel, Robert Mueller, was no merit, I mean, it was different.

 

>> Speaker 1: Gentlemen, onto the lightning round.

>> Speaker 6: Lightning round.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: What is the lightning round?

>> H.R McMaster: We're supposed to be succinct, but we struggle with that.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Okay, is it just to sick a statement or questions, or what? Just questions.

>> H.R McMaster: Really quickly.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Okay.

>> Bill Whalen: All right, for this week's lightning round, we have a question.

We actually start with a column written recently by David Frum in the Atlantic, who argues that it's time to uncancel Woodrow Wilson, the American president and former president of Princeton University, whose name was taken off a building for his, rather, shall we say, unenlightened views on race. Here's what Frum writes, and I want your guys comments on this.

It is above all to the drumbeat of Wilsonian idealism that American foreign policy has marched since his watershed presidency, and continues to march to this day. Mr. Frum adds, I very much believe that the United States has been a force for good in the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.

If you do also, then our appreciation must begin with the fundamental achievement of the president who first exerted this force. Gentlemen, yes or no, is it time to uncancel Woodrow Wilson? Victor.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I'm not a big fan of Woodrow Wilson, so I think he got his just desserts.

I don't believe in canceling anybody, but if they're gonna cancel somebody, I don't shed any tears over his cancellation.

>> Bill Whalen: John.

>> John H. Cochrane: Double cancel him, he was the great. He brought about the progressive state, he vastly expanded the government and his idealism turned out I think the. Yeah, we solved all those problems in the Treaty of Versailles and the Germans never came to bother us again.

That one worked out beautifully, didn't it? So I'm for double canceling him for additional charges.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Okay.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, HR.

>> H.R McMaster: I'll just point out that he was not in his right mind at the end of his presidency and his wife pretty much ran the show in the White House.

Not that there's any relevance to today or anything, yes.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, next question for the gentleman. The Oscar ceremony is this weekend, so let's go to the movies. The actor activist Rob Reiner, Victor's a big fan of his work and his beliefs. He recently said that, quote, the greatest single performance in US cinema belongs to Marlon Brando and on the waterfront.

Do you guys believe or is Mr. Reiner being a meathead? John, I would point out that your favorite movie, Groundhog Day, gets mentioned. Bill Murrays in 48, please. Victor, Henry Fonda, Grapes of Breath, came in at 51st. This is all according to a recent American media study. And then HR, 82nd place, George T Scott for Patton.

So, John, greatest single cinematic performance.

>> John H. Cochrane: Maybe Rob Reiner is being modest because he didn't put in the Princess bride.

>> Rob Reiner: You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia.

>> Bill Whalen: HR.

>> H.R McMaster: Hey, well, it's hard for me to come up with just one, but you can't go wrong with Brando.

Brando's just so darn good, you know? I think so, I would say just Brando overall across multiple movies. And then just to be maybe funny about it, how about Donald Sutherland as oddball in Kelly's heroes. When he says a tank can give you a nice edge.

>> Donald Sutherland: A Sherman can give you a very nice edge.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Victor, I mentioned Henry Fonda of Grapes of Wrath because I wanted to appeal the farmer. And you have a favorite actor in film?

>> Victor Davis Hanson: That was a great performance, Jimmy Stewart, all that generation, and Gregory Peck and Kill Mockingbird was great, but I think George C Scott was, he became Patton.

So that was a great. I don't think that role Marlon Brando was great on. That was his greatest role on the waterfront. But George C Scott, I'd go with you.

>> George C Scott: Goddamn coward.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, my choice goes to an actor named John Vernon, who stars in a movie called Animal House, which at all times is a font of wisdom.

He is dean Wormer, and of course, he's the one who said, fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.

>> John Vernon: Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life son.

>> Bill Whalen: I can argue there are a few things more profound than that.

>> John H. Cochrane: And we left out actors of the female gender here, too, of which there are many excellent ones.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Yes, good point. Okay, we have a final question for viewer male, which is a reminder that we do welcome questions from our audience. If you wanna pose a question to Sean HR Neil, you go to Hoover.org/AskGoodFellows. That site, again, is Hoover.org/AskGoodFellows. Our question this week comes from Spencer in London, England, who writes, for the applied historians, can you review his historical cases in which countries grew as divided as we are today and then came back together, teaching us about how they did so?

Reading Tom Holland's Roman history trilogy recently made me think Trump and Biden are a worryingly good Sulla and Marius comparison. Maybe since Clinton's impeachment or since Robert Bork, the game seems to be tit-and-a-half for tit down to hell? Victor, are we currently living something similar to the Roman civil war of the first century BC?

 

>> Victor Davis Hanson: I hope not, because the solution that brought a people together was Augustus, who ended the Republic, and I hope we're not at that point. And the French Revolution was ended by Napoleon, and the Weimar chaos was ended by Hitler. So we don't want that to happen, and we have to show a lot more self restraint.

But it's getting very scary because it's a geographical force multiplier now, in our federal system, people are moving to areas where they feel comfortable, and we're. The red paradigm's working, the blue one's failing, but they're dividing. And so, I can see it in my own family, I mean, people, siblings that don't speak to me, so it's scary.

 

>> Bill Whalen: John, can you think of a country that managed to work out its differences?

>> John H. Cochrane: Yeah, been trying hard now. And yes, many instances, but usually when they come together over an external threat. The US was pretty divided in 1939, and we all came together in 1941, and so thanks to the Japanese.

But I'd like to not do it that way. Of course, the US was also pretty divided in the 1850s, and we came together at another great cost of life. I'd like to not do it that way either. And I'm especially finding it difficult to find a case where the problem has been the political takeover and the rot of the institutions, the norms, the restraints.

They don't bring a gun to a knife fight kind of approach where people cared about keeping the institutions of the country going. And now, as I think we've said several times on this show, watching the institutions of the country become politicized as well as just the opinions of people is a very dangerous moment.

So I'm not the historian, and I can't think of one where that all resolved peacefully, but I'm hoping one of you guys can.

>> Bill Whalen: Let's go to the historian, HR can you give us an example of a divided country that came together?

>> H.R McMaster: Well, there are many examples, but I'm trying to think of examples that didn't involve a great deal of violence, right?

And then people coming together after they had looked over or experienced the falling off, the precipice of disaster. So I think maybe useful examples are some of the ones that John just mentioned are the leaders who brought together a country that have become increasingly divided, right, and emphasized our common identity.

I think there are great examples in American history, I mean, beginning with George Washington. I mean, it was not an easy task, obviously, to bring the country together who had identified mainly as individual colonies and then individual states under any kind of federal authority. The revision of the form of government into the constitution took leadership.

Obviously, after the civil war, it was very difficult to bring the country together. That accommodation happened largely at the expense of black Americans. It was accommodation, mainly between northern whites and southern whites. We struggle with that through the civil rights movement. I mean America has always been a work in progress.

I think of the Reagan era as a period in which we regained our confidence. Just maybe not to answer your question, but a different one, Bill, is look at examples when we've had leaders who have brought Americans together, we've always been divided, right? Divisions aren't new. It's really the degree to which were confident in our leadership.

And as we've talked about here today in our institutions, such that we have a say in how we're governed, that we do enjoy the rule of law. We have to restore our confidence. A lot of that has to do with what we've talked a lot about in this program.

Maybe we're gonna have Victor back to talk about this, which is the curriculum of self loathing in our institutions that teach our young people that our country may not even be worth defending. So I really think there's so much to work on, but let's get after it. Let's work on it.

 

>> John H. Cochrane: I just want to salute our resident optimist for closing on the right note. And you've also convinced me, you're right. Let's think about Reagan and Thatcher. Now, yes, they were hated by the left at their time, but they did bring back growth, confidence, competent institutions. So by the mid 1990s, they had the countries were, in fact, grudgingly back together, even though the left wouldn't admit it was, thanks to Reagan.

I think of Harding and Coolidge in the 1920s. Our country was in pretty bad shape after Wilson got done with it. And they brought back, by bringing the institutions together, return to normalcy, the country was healed in many ways. So, yes, thank you, HR. It's possible, and you're giving me some hope.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, gentlemen, thank you for ending on an optimistic note. Victor, thanks ever so much for coming on.

>> Victor Davis Hanson: Thank you.

>> Bill Whalen: Good luck with the harvest, and good luck for the book. Its title, again for our listeners, is The End of Everything, How Wars Descent into Annihilation.

You can pre-order it now on Amazon. On behalf of my colleagues, HR McMaster, John Cochran, Victor Davis Hanson, the absent Neil Ferguson, we hope is safe and sound wherever the international man of history happens to be right now. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please send in your comments, send in your questions.

We look forward to being back soon with the new episode. Until then, you take care. We'll see you soon.

>> Speaker 11: If you enjoyed this show and are interested in watching more content featuring HR McMaster, watch Battlegrounds, also available at hoover.org.