The Daily Signal - Liberal Lawfare 2.0: Left-wing Activist Judges’ Plan to Stop Trump | Victor Davis Hanson

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Despite winning the electoral college, and popular vote, President Donald Trump continues to face numerous legal roadblocks as he tries to fulfill his campaign promises, such as reigning in mass illegal immigration and protecting Jewish students on college campuses.   Well-funded liberal organizations and left-wing activist judges have launched a full-court-press to seemingly block everything Trump is doing, which is eerily similar to the 2022-24 lawfare period, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words:”   “This is very analogous—cherry-picking left-wing judges is very analogous to what we watched all during the 2022-24 lawfare period. You remember Judge [Arthur] Engoron, Judge [Juan] Merchan, and Judge [Lewis] Kaplan—he was the judge in the E. Jean Carroll [case]. And we had the Alvin Bragg judge and the Letitia James. They were all—like these judges, they had two things in common: They were left-wing activist judges, appointed by either Biden, Obama, or Bill Clinton. And they had minor to major conflicts of interest where people in their family were big, either had worked for a prior Democratic administration or themselves were activists.   “And what did they do? They tried to put Donald Trump in jail.   “That same lawfare has now been transmogrified and put into a more concerted effort to stop everything that Donald Trump is trying to do. And what he's trying to do, remember, is not radical. It's just simply to enforce immigration law. It's just simply to bring back the country to the middle.”   Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ostensibly, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance won an overwhelming victory, and you can define that in a variety of ways, not just a plurality, but I think it would be called a referendum on America. And yet they are now stymie. In a pre-planned way, liberal organization, lavishly funded by what they themselves might want to call oligarchs, have funded massive lawsuits against the Trump administration, stopping executive orders. Cherry-picking left-wing activist judges appointed by either Biden,

Obama or Bill Clinton. And what did they do? They tried to put Donald Trump in jail. That same lawfare has now been transmogrified and put into a more concerted effort to stop everything that Donald Trump is trying to do. And what he's trying to do, remember, is not radical. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. ostensibly Donald Trump and J.D. Vance won an overwhelming victory. And you can define that in a variety of ways that not just a plurality, but I think it would be called a referendum on America. After all, they were the first ticket on the Republican side to have won the popular vote in 20 years. They won an overwhelming majority in the electoral college. They retained control of the House of Representatives.

They won the Senate. There's a six to three supposedly conservative majority on the Supreme Court. They won all of the swing states. So they came into office with this momentum from the American people that was expressed through a national election. And yet they are now stymie. Almost all of their initiatives are facing two types of opposition. The first is, in a pre-planned way, liberal organization, lavishly funded by what they themselves might want to call oligarchs, have funded massive lawsuits

against the Trump administration, stopping executive orders. Remember this idea that executive orders were a rapid and effective way for a president to rule didn't come from Donald Trump. It came from Barack Obama. He recalibrated the use of executive orders when he lost the majority in Congress. And he said, I have a pen and I have a phone, and I'm going to act accordingly. And he did so. But what we're seeing now is that these liberal organizations are targeting left-wing judges. Judge Reyes in Washington, who was described as a Biden appointee as the first Latina LGBTQ, she just ruled to stop the Pentagon's new policy not having a president. or forbidding transgendered people in combat units.

Judge Furman, another lower district judge, he just put out a stay not too long ago, rescinding the deportation of Mr. Mahmood Khalil. And Mr. Bozber stopped the deportation of this very dangerous trend game of South American criminals who came here illegally. Now, what was the argument that the Trump administration was using that incurred the wrath of liberal activists? All they wanted to do was say, we don't know the effect of transgendered people in combat units. This is a new phenomenon.

For now, we're going to put a stay on it. That was the Department of Defense and the Trump administration. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear-off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us,

and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. We don't know how these people from South America, in these gangs got here. But we do know they came illegally and they were residing illegally and they're in very dangerous gangs and many of them are committed crimes. So if it was, if they broke the law to come here, we want to enforce the law to have them go back. Mr. Khalil, I think as we've seen news accounts, start to recalibrate the idea that he was just a neutral, semi-partisan, not very active supporter of Hamas is not true. He was the official

spokesman for the apartheid divest at Columbia-Barnard. He supported the massacres on October 7th. He was a big supporter and adherent of Hamas, which is a terrorist-designated organization. And so what we're seeing is liberal groups trying to keep people who are supporting the terrorist Hamas are supporting these gangs inside the United States. This is very analogous. Cherry-picking left-wing judges is very analogous to what we watched all during the 2022-24 lawfare period. Remember Judge Ingoran, Judge McKeown, and Judge Kaplan? He was the judge in the E. Jean Carroll.

and we had the Alvin Bragg judge and the Latita James. They were all like these judges. They had two things in common. They were left-wing activist judges appointed by either Biden, Obama, or Bill Clinton. And they had minor to major conflicts of interest where people in their family were big, either had worked for a prior Democratic administration,

or themselves were activist. And what did they do? They tried to put Donald Trump in jail. That same lawfare has now been transmogrified and put into a more concerted effort to stop everything that Donald Trump is trying to do. And what he's trying to do, remember, is not radical. It's just simply to enforce immigration law.

It's just simply to bring back the country to the middle. Will this succeed? I don't think so. I think the district courts were over, the appellate courts will overturn it, if not then the Supreme Court. But they know that. The point is they want to delay, delay, delay. Donald Trump is already a lame duck president. He only has four years left, and he's got less than two years before the midterm elections. Their plan is to drag all of these executive orders, which are backed by a vote of the people who elected Donald Trump, is to drag them through the courts and stop him, create a sense of chaos, make the Republicans in general, and Donald Trump in particular, overreact, and then cause chaos, controversy, constitutional

crisis, and eat up these precious four years. As of now, it's succeeding, but time will tell and we'll weigh in next time. This is Victor Davis Hansen. for the Daily Signal. Thank you for watching today's podcasts. And for more news like that, subscribe to the Daily Signal. Maybe you can check out my own website at victorhansson.com for podcast, lectures,

ultra-series behind a paywall, but more importantly, just daily columns that are accessible and free to everyone. Thank you very much.