The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: 3 Key Moves for the Trump Administration Ahead of Midterms

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

It’s been a whirlwind first few months of Trump 2.0, but he and Republicans need to stay focused on the next big election: midterms 2026.   Victor Davis Hanson reviews the first months of the Trump administration—highlighting successes that critics said were impossible—and identifies three areas for caution. 👉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    👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273    👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: https://victorhanson.com  00:00 Introduction and Overview of Trump's First Year 01:21 Tariffs and Trade Policies 02:57 Federal Intervention in Cities 04:54 Concerns About Latin America and Conclusion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. I've been a big supporter, as all of you have, in most cases, of what we've seen the first eight or nine months of the Trump administration. What everybody said would happen, didn't happen, that we would have a stock market collapse, we'd be in a recession, hyperinflation. Trump has had phenomenal success in Washington, D.C. By placing the National Guard and federal troops there, he's radically decreased crime.

But we're about a year, a little over a year, until the midterms. and although the Trump positives are still pretty good, I'd just like to outline two or three things. He, the president, if you wanted to take my humble advice or your advice, might want to watch out for. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. I've been a big supporter, as all of you have, in most cases, of what we've seen, the first eight or nine months of the Trump administration. But we're heading up with about a year, a little over a year, until the midterms. And although the Trump positives are still pretty good, I'd just like to outline two or three things we might want. He, the president, if you wanted to take my humble advice or your advice, might want to watch out for.

The first are tariffs. What everybody said would happen, didn't happen, that we would have a stock market collapse. We'd be in a recession, hyperinflation. But one of the strengths of his argument for tariffs were that there was a moral argument that certain countries had asymmetrical. I shouldn't say certain countries. The majority of countries were using the United States to expand their economies while we offshoreed and outsourced. And the result was an unsustainable $1.2 trillion annual trade deficit that hemorrhaged a lot of jobs. but there were some countries, not very many, that ran sizable surpluses.

One was the U.K., one of our closest allies. Another was President Medli of Argentina. Argentina, we have a surplus in trade with Argentina. We have a surplus in trade with Brazil, and we have a surplus in trade with Australia. They're not big surpluses, but they're not deficit. So it would be wise, I think, to recalibrate our trade policies with our close friends that we are running surpluses with, and they have small deficits with us. In other words, their systems are not manipulating the so-called free trade protocols of the world in a way that China is or Germany is or Canada or Mexico. I think that would help the president a great deal.

The second is that I don't think it's wise to go into Chicago, and I'll tell you why. Everybody mourns for the loss of life, the hundreds of people who are slaughtered there every year, the inability of Democratic elected city councils, Mayor Johnson, etc. But if you go into Chicago, then the argument goes, you'll go into Los Angeles, then you'll go in to Baltimore or you'll go into Detroit. And there's a logic to it that Trump has had phenomenal success in Washington, D.C. But here's my concerns for the Trump administration. You have a federal mandate because Washington is not in a state. It's in the District of Columbia.

And it's outlined as such in the Constitution. So the president has a 30-day legal authorization. And by placing the National Guard and federal troops, He's radically decreased crime, and he's won over sort of a very liberal mayor, not the city council, but he can expand on that in various ways and show everybody in the country what an activist president who's worried about the loss of life can do for a city, and he has legal jurisdiction. But I'm afraid that if he goes into Chicago, he is going to be ambushed by the city council. He's going to be ambushed by the mayor.

he's going to have all of this opposition. And I don't think anybody is going to work with him. Even the police, where they would secretly side with Trump to stop the violence, they know that he might not be there, he being federal troops, and therefore they would face retaliation when he left. So I think it would be wiser to use Washington as an iconic example of what these other cities should do as they watch the effect of federal troops to lower these. horrendous of violence and murder rates.

And finally, there's a third concern I have, and that is while I think it's important to stop all of the importation from Latin America into the United States, and we've young, Donald Trump has blown up a traffickers boat in international waters that killed 11 people, but they were obviously intent on bringing toxic fentanyl and other type of opiate drugs into the United States.

He's been doing a great job in job-owning China and not to send fentanyl product into Mexico. He's threatened the cartels. But we don't have a good history necessarily of going into Latin America. And again, it's kind of a quagmire that if we go in to try to chase down narco-traffickers,

most of them, not all, but most of them are synonymous with the governments there. and we were not going to get a lot of help. They may say they will help us, but it's a headache that he does not need right before the midterm. Just let me recap. I'm not criticizing the administration. I'm just suggesting there's two or three areas that I'd be very cautious. One is losing the moral argument for tariffs.

Let's not put tariffs on countries that run surpluses in our favor. Let's not necessarily go into these big cities, especially the Chicago, Barack Obama, Ram Emanuel, Mayor Johnson, a 80% left-wing city that is not going to cooperate and will resist in a Democratic Party that would rather see crime increase rather than work with or support federal intervention by Donald Trump. And finally, I think while it's wise to stop interdict drugs coming into the country, even in international, waters. Let's not put U.S. troops into anywhere in Latin America. We don't have a good history there, and we don't need an optional foreign intervention in the Western Hemisphere at this particular time. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for The Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this.

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