The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: If You Think Trump Is a ‘King,’ Just Look in the Mirror

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Who’s more of a “king”: Donald Trump, who ran for election three times, won the popular vote, the Electoral College, and all the swing states in 2024, or Joe Biden, who was appointed by Democratic Party elites in 2020 to be the nominee after losing the first three primaries and remained sequestered to his basement for the remainder of the campaign? Monarchs conduct lawfare. For all his talk in 2016 about “locking her up,” President Donald Trump did not direct his administration to investigate Hillary Clinton, however, Trump “had 91 indictments filed by federal, local, and state prosecutors in cahoots,” points out Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”  “Joe Biden, in 2020, had lost the first three caucuses or primaries. He was going nowhere. And then a group of insiders, politicos, donors, the media panicked because they knew that to nominate a Elizabeth Warren, a Pete Buttigieg, especially a Bernie Sanders, would destroy the Democratic ticket. “So, they cooked up this idea that Joe Biden from Scranton—even though they knew he was already cognitively challenged—could be a veneer, a wax effigy. And then they did not allow him to campaign because we know what happens when he campaigns, as we saw in 2024. “He sat in the basement under the pretext of COVID. He outsourced his campaign like a royal monarch to his underlings in the media. They got him elected. And then he, more or less, abdicated while on the job and let the hard Left, in this quid pro quo arrangement, run the country.” 👉 This episode is sponsored by the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. Learn more: ⁠https://go.pepperdine.edu/dailysignal⁠ 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short 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  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1 👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com 👉The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: ⁠https://secured.dailysignal.com/⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. Supposedly millions of people nationwide have hit the streets under the banner of no kings. I guess that means that Donald Trump is a monarch. Kings don't have elections. They were just appointed by birth or a privy council. Some kind of insider appoints this person or that person if there's not a royal error in succession. Joe Biden in 2020 had lost the first three caucuses or primaries. He was going nowhere.

And then a group of insiders, politicals, donors, the media, cooked up this idea that Joe Biden from Scranton, he sat in the basement under the pretext of COVID. He outsourced his campaign like a royal monarch to his underlings in the media. They got him elected, and then he more or less abdicated while on the job. For those on the left who were worried about kings taking over the country or violating our freedom, look in the mirror. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hans. for the Daily Signal. We've been witnessing supposedly millions of people nationwide have hit the streets under the banner of no kings. I guess that means that Donald Trump is a monarch, an hereditary

leader of some sort, but who really are the kings and who is not the kings? And we could go through some definitions of monarchy and see to whom it applies the best. Kings don't have elections. they were just appointed by birth or a privy council, I don't know, some kind of insider appoints this person or that person if there's not a royal error in succession. Or might apply to an autocrat is true. Donald Trump ran for election three times. He won twice. The last time he won the popular vote, the electoral college, he won all of the swing states. First Republican to win the popular vote since 2004.

He had 70, 30, 60, 40 majorities on all of the issues. Joe Biden in 2020 had lost the first three caucuses or primaries. He was going nowhere. And then a group of insiders, political, donors, the media panicked because they knew that to nominate a Elizabeth Warren, a Pete Buttigig, especially a Bernie Sanders, would destroy the Democratic ticket. So they cooked up this idea that Joe Biden from Scranton, even though, They knew he was already cognitively challenged could be a veneer, a waxen effigy.

And then they did not allow him to campaign because we know what happens when he campaigns, as we saw in 2024. He sat in the basement under the pretext of COVID. He outsourced his campaign like a royal monarch to his underlings in the media. They got him elected, and then he more or less abdicated while on the job and let the hard left in this quid pro quo. arrangement, run the country. I should say run the country into the ground by opening the border, 10 to 12 million illegal aliens, a 9% inflation rate, humiliation in Afghanistan, etc. Donald Trump, again, went transparently and openly out to the voters to be elected. We also know that monarchs conduct lawfare. That is, they use their judges to go after political

enemies. Donald Trump never went after his opponent, Hillary Clinton, even though she had a lot of criminal exposure with her email scandal. He never went after Barack Obama. No FBI raided the Obama home to look for classified documents, even though he had a well-publicized disagreement with the archive, federal archivist, about which documents he should take or hold. He never went after. He never went after Joe Biden. He hasn't gone after Joe Biden today. In contrast, Donald Trump had 91 indictments filed by federal, local, and state prosecutors in cahoots. We know that on November 15th when he announced this campaign, a mere three days later, Jack Smith, a federal prosecutor, went after him on the Marlago raid and also on January 6th. We know that that same day that Smith was appointed, suddenly Nathan Wade from Fannie Willis's Georgia prosecution turned up talking to the Biden-White-Council.

White House counsel in the White House. We know that same day the third-ranking DOJ attorney left. He came from Lottita James prosecution of Trump, but he left that day, resigned from his prestigious position to go to work for whom? Alvin Bragg. That's what monarchs do. We know that monarchs also snoop. They go after their enemies with you know, espionage. That's sort of like Barack Obama. He surveilled the phone records of AP journalists. His CIA director surveilled in light about it, John Brennan, the staff computers of senators. We know that Joe Biden's special counsel, Jack Smith, spied on eight senators' phone records. He had the data of all of their phones, how long they talked to someone, who, when it was to whom they did. Donald Trump hasn't done that.

He hasn't gotten 51 intelligence authorities to lie that a laptop was authentic. He didn't order the FBI to work with Facebook or the old Twitter to suppress the news. That's what the Biden administration did. So what is this no Kings about? They should be talking about the Obama and Biden administration. Kings ignore subpoenas. They just say the law doesn't apply to me. So that's what Eric Holder, the attorney general and so-called wingman of the Obama administration did.

He got a subpoena to talk to Congress and bring evidence about the fast and furious scandal. And what did he do? He said, I'm not going to obey a congressional subpoena. Merrick Garland got one to come in and testify. He said, I don't obey congressional subpoena. two high-ranking Trump support, not cabinet members, but advisors in the White House for a long time. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro got congressional subpoenas about January 6th, and they said, this is overtly political. I'm not going to show up in Eric Holder, Eric Holder style or Merrick Garland style.

And what happened to them? They were arrested. They were indicted. They were convicted, and they were imprisoned. That's what Kings do. Kings don't obey parliaments to the extent they have them. If they disagree with something, they shut them down. They just cease to exist.

As we're speaking, that government is shut down. And why is it shut down? Because the Democrats lost the 2024 election. They have no power in the House, and they have no power in the Senate. All they have is a minority filibuster veto on the Senate. And they decided because they did not. get their way to shut down the entire federal government. Wasn't Donald Trump that shut it down.

It was the kingly act of the left. And finally, monarchs nullify existing law when they don't like it. They just say, you know what, I'm not going to follow it. Donald Trump has been the subject of ridiculous lower district federal judge writs. The whole purpose of them is to do is to do, is to. delay and hamper his executive orders. Everybody knows that the orders are legal, that they are either overturned at the next circuit court appellate level or by the Supreme Court. Nonetheless, these left-wing federal judges become iconic by stopping Donald Trump. Does he obey them? Yes. Does Governor

Newsom or Governor Pritzker or Mayor Johnson in Chicago or Mayor Karen, do they obey them? federal law? No. In kingly, queenly fashion, they said federal law does not apply to us on matters of immigration. We will oppose ICE. We will not cooperate with us. In the case of Mayor Johnson, we will not have law enforcement come to their aid when they're in danger. In the case of Portland, and if thugs are attacking ICE and they want to protect themselves and arrest these people, then they flee to the other side of the street and hide behind local police. In other words, in neo-confederate style, the left, maybe like kings, are nullifying federal law. They'd say that Article 6 of the Constitution that specifies that the enforcement of federal law by federal enforcement

shall take authority over, shall enjoy authority over state, local and county law. in matters of federal jurisdiction. In other words, if you have a federal law about immigration and you want to get a criminal or someone who's facing a deportation order, doesn't matter what the city of Los Angeles or the county of Los Angeles or the state of California say a federal law enforcement officer has the right

to arrest somebody if it's legal and he's in violation of either immigration law or federal codes, and they are. And yet in nullification, neoc confederate fashion, that law is being nullified, ignored, violated. In other words, if you're going to have a no-king's protest and argue that the current president is a monarch, a king, a dictator, an autocrat, then you better come with evidence. But kings hold elections, they stand for re-election, they follow federal law, they follow federal law, they follow court orders they don't snoop on people they follow congressional subpoenas and they don't conduct lawfare for those on the left who are worried about kings taking over the country or violating

our freedom look in the mirror 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 can also check out my own website at victorhansson.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition