Victor Davis Hanson

speaker

2,022 appearances 16 recordings 5 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard 23 Mar

Victor Davis Hanson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 2.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Victor Davis Hanson Show · Overexposed: The Truth and Troubles of Left Politics · 25 Feb 2025 podcast

Basically, he said the following. We used to have an American president, George H.W. Bush, who when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, he said, this shall not stand. What will Republicans say about a president that doesn't follow that example? I'm paraphrasing. And that got a furious response from J.D. Vance. And he's called him a globalist and basically a bankrupt moralist.

It's a very tough response, but he outlined five things that Trump and the administration wanted. We do not want the United States in this mess. Number two, we have given them more money than Europeans. Number three, they don't have any plan how to stop this war. Number four, the real enemy is China. Number five, we are draining our critical stocks of shells and weaponry to subsidize this.

And we do have a say. So then Donald Trump came back and said, after everybody was angry at him, he said, I want to get paid back for all this stuff. And you have rare minerals that are critical, lithium and other things. And we want a concession. And oh, my God, he's an imperialist. But everybody should remember what Trump was trying to do. He's trying to say you're never going.

We know what Trump's position is and what J.D. Vance's is. And that's what we all talked about. They are not going to be in NATO, but it wouldn't even matter if they were in NATO because NATO would never come to their rescue. And if they did want to come to their rescue, look at them. How many people does Britain have that are battle-ready, Jack? 18,000, I think? 18,000 troops?

Well, I mean, they have about 180,000. Yeah, I know, but battle-ready? Yeah. I mean, you can get like that. And how many tanks are—there's fewer than 50 that are running— in Germany, and I think Germany has about 10 F-35s, so even if they wanted to, they couldn't, and they don't want to. So what's holding...

Vladimir Putin from absorbing all of Ukraine are the heroism of the soldiers in the field that are Ukrainian, and the average age is getting up close to 30, and they're worn out, and U.S. munitions and intelligence and economic aid. I think we pay for the entire salaries of the Ukrainian administration.

Okay, so then Donald Trump is saying, we want these concessions to be paid back, and they said, how dare you do that? They don't understand Trump. They don't understand any of this. This is all art of the deal trolling. And what he's basically saying is, Mr. Zelensky, you are not master of your own fate. Don't tell me what you are going to do and what you're not going to do. It's your country.

I'm not saying I'm going to get into your business. I'm just saying if you want me to get into your business, and apparently you do... then I'm going to have the say. If you don't want me to get in your business, fine. You go deal with the Germans and the Poles and the British, and they're going to protect you.

But don't play this game where you come and fly during an election year to an ammunitions plant and start lobbying against me and then tell me that you're disinterested. I'm not going to believe that. So if you want United States aid, you from now on are going to pay for it, and we'll have a concession. But the real subtext was... Zelensky thought about, ah, this is horrible.

And then he thought about it. And obviously, he said, people came to him and they must have said, hey, Zelensky, you understand what he's really saying? He's not going to send U.S. troops over there. And if the British sent troops and the French, that wouldn't be any good. But he's going to put a lot of American businesses and investment there.

And so if Putin were to try to break whatever negotiation we have and try to overrun, he's going to be dealing with American investment money, corporations, employees, infrastructure. And that will bring the United States into conflict with Putin.

In other words, we're trying to sort of kind of have an investment in Ukraine to get back the money, but also to tell Putin this is a nation that's going to open up investment to Western concerns. So don't go in again. So then in this rigmarole. And Neil said that it was like the Gulf War.

J.D., correctly, I think, and this is no criticism of Neil, that that was not a historical, good historical account. I pointed out that this is exactly like, in my response to both of them, exactly like the 1939 Winter War. November, Hitler. had made a deal with the Soviet Union. The United States was isolationist. France and Britain were terrified over the loss of Poland.

They knew they were going to be invaded soon, and they were invaded. And Stalin said, you know what? Germany is on our side. There's no other opposition. We're going to go take what we want from Finland, our neighbor. So they went to General Mannerheim and said, we want 10%, just like Putin. Oh, no, no, you can't. Okay, we're going to invade. And they invaded. And that was the worst.

Like Putin, at Kiev, they had no idea about the metal of the Finns. They're some of the bravest, most courageous people in the world. And all of November, December, January, February, they killed, wounded, or captured 400,000 soldiers. The Finns were on skis. They had sharpshooters. They were dressed in white during the snow.

They understood the terrain, the weather, and the Russians were just bled white. And then finally Stalin said, grind them down. They poured in artillery. They poured in tanks. They poured in another million people. And all of a sudden, this poor little country of two and a half million was overrun. So then what did they do? They were in the same position as Mannerheim went to Stalin and said, look,

We'll give you the 10%. But if you try to take the whole country, we'll fight to the death. And Stalin said, well, that's what I... I only wanted to steal 10%. And what happened after that? Mannerheim was very careful in World War II. He helped the Germans, but he never invaded the Soviet Union. He promised he would never join Germany.

And even though the Germans begged him at the siege of Leningrad, please, you've got a half a million of the best fighters in the world. You could break the siege of Leningrad if you just set foot on Soviet territory and stop the supply. And Mannerheim said, nope. I will help you anywhere way I can, but I'm not going to invade the Soviet Union.

And when they lost, Stalin went over to Finland and said, I'm going to let you go. You're not going to join the West. You're going to be like Austria. No West, no Soviet. And it kept their freedom for 85 years. So that's a good model for Ukraine. They're not going to get the Crimea back and they are not going to get the Donbass. And that has not been the policy of Mr. Putin.

Obama, Mr. Trump, or Mr. Biden to get it back militarily. Nobody believes they can. They're not going to... Another argument that Neil Ferguson made was, we're giving back... You're playing poker and you're giving away all of your leverage.

Showing 1441–1460 of 2,022 · page 73 of 102