The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: They Fled Failed Countries—Just to Criticize America?

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Victor Davis Hanson takes on Zohran Mamdani, Hasan Piker, and Ilhan Omar over a glaring double standard in their attacks on America. They condemn the United States and Israel over colonialism, inequality, oppression, and war—but rarely apply that same scrutiny to Uganda, Turkey, Somalia, and the countries they or their families came from. Hanson’s message is simple: before condemning America, look in the mirror. PragerU - Please support PragerU with a tax-deductible donation today. Go to http://PragerU.com/VDH and give generously today. “The Counterrevolution: The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement” NOW: https://www.amazon.com/Counterrevolution-Fall-Donald-Trump-Movement-ebook/dp/B0GF1K43WM  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take. The socialist Islamist group has a whole list of complaints about this country that we're supposed to listen to and a whole list of complaints about the only democracy in the Middle East Israel that we're supposed to listen to. But many of these fiercest critics are dual citizens. And when they're in their other country, they say, about its sins, and there are plenty from settler colonialism to genocide to apartheid to war crimes. But they do blast the democracies for those very sins. We don't have to listen to this anymore.

Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. As we head toward the midterms in this last month of October, it's time to reflect on who are the leadership of what we would call the Democratic Socialist-Dash-Islamicist new basis or alliance with or absorption of the Democratic Party. We've talked about one element. These are upscale people with college degrees, 85% white, in blue states, blue cities, who feel that their social science degrees, public policies degrees, psych degrees, should earn them a salary in which they could buy a home in New York, or a condo in Los Angeles, or have a family in San Francisco.

And they rubbed shoulders with very wealthy people, financiers, insurance, CEOs, and they feel they're in that same echelon. And yet they can't, given their student debt and the decisions they made to major in those fields and then expect to be highly marketable. That anger, that discouragement has fueled a rejection of the whole capitalist system. But they also have a second group, and I call that the Islamist element. What's funny about these people are most or first or second generation immigrants. They came over here from failed states. They were welcomed by the left.

And upon arrival, they had a whole list of complaints against the United States. And yet they had never been discriminated, oppressed by the United States. If anything, they came here for our security, prosperity, and freedom that was lacking in their own country. Let's just take a look at two or three of these people as emblematic of this new direction of the Democratic Party. Zoran Mondami gave a 4th of July address on our 250th birthday. He had just reiterated, as he did last week, that he would arrest, he thought, Benjamin Net Yahoo, the Israeli Prime Minister, any time he came in to the United States to visit the UN, which is impossible because he's given federal immunity.

community. But it was a good bombastic campaign trope. But on this speech, he said that the United States was victimized. As he said, Mondami said, there was terror in the streets. We were controlled by monopolies. It was an unfair society run by elites. So he had a whole writ of complaints. But Mondami is a dual citizen, both of Uganda where he was born and of the United States, which he was naturalized. Does he ever have any self-awareness of that? Because Uganda has been ruled, Mosevi, a president who has been in power for 40 years. He's a dictator. Did the Mondami family ever object to that?

Does he object to that now? Imagine he has complaints, half of his citizenship, he has complaints about the oldest democracy in the world, but the other half of his citizenship, he's mom. Well, you're going to say he doesn't go back there. Yes, he does. He was married in Uganda just a few months ago, and he was married at the family estate

with a beautiful view in Kampala of Lake Victoria. He's a very wealthy guy. His parents, his mother is a distinguished filmmaker. His dad's an endowed professor at Columbia University. So when he says all of these things about genocide and apartheid and settler colonialism, why doesn't he look at his half citizenship and say, I fought for egalitarianism in my native Uganda, and I said to my Indian community, you're 1% and your settler colonization.

and you control 60%. We've got to spread the wealth. Just like he said in New York, we're going to go after richer, wider neighborhoods. Why didn't he say that our Indian community lives in self-appointed enclaves that are segregated? They're not segregated de jure, but they are de facto. Why doesn't he say, let's move out and integrate and assimilate to the indigenous people? Does he ever say the Indian community in Uganda was a British imperial project to keep the indigenous population in check. My point, he has a whole list of characteristics about his adopted country, but he says nothing using the same standards about his native country. So is it a settler colonial country that you allege Israelism? Is it apartheid country? You legge Israelist? Think about it. He's not the only one. Hassan,

Piker was born for a moment in the United States by Turkish parents and went right back to Turkey where he was raised. His family is very, very wealthy. He's a multimillionaire. He bought a $3 million home. That's a theme with this group of Islamists, and he drives a $200,000 Porsche. He has said that I'm quoting literally, I hate the United States, and he said that we deserve, quote, 9-11. But you would think that, and he won't really tell us whether he is a dual citizen or not, but under Turkish law, under the youth sanguinus, that if you're born anywhere to Turkish parents on both sides, that you are a Turkish citizen, at least a dual citizen. Does he ever criticize Turkey in the way that he criticizes us?

Under Erdogan has become almost a dictatorship. Has he spoken out against it? I don't think so because his parents have, what, sizable investments in corporate activity and profit making in Turkey? Has he ever said this? My country, my parents' country, my grandfather's country, went into Cyprus and attacked it and planted a settler colonial movement to join the Turkish population and then appropriated 40% of the rich. part of Cyprus at 1974 and then colonize it with additional colonialists from Turkey and no other country in the world, not China, not Russia, not North Korea, not Iran recognize that colonial project. Can he have one word about that? Can you say, I object

to the Americans' history, and that's why I hate the United States. But to be fair, I must say that when I go back to Turkey, I'm going to tell them that they have done a lot of bad things, such as the Armenian Genocide, in which one million Armenians were killed, mostly civilians, by the new Turkish army. And I'll have to add, as well, that in 1923, during the Turkish Greek War, the Turks surrounded the ancient city of Smyrna, now called Izmir. and burned it and everybody in it incinerated it. And people say maybe 15,000, some say 50, some even say 100,000 Greeks were incinerated.

The American ambassador to Greece has a wonderful or tragic view. He watched it happen from a boat and picked up people who swam. Can he ever say something about Turkey in the same vein that he does about his adopted country? And then we come, I'll give you one more example, Ileon Omar. She said that this country is trashy, and it's, quote, the worst country, the worst of all countries in the world. She said that. She's a representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. Do we ever hear her say, I came from Somalia that was worn, torn, ravaged a complete failed state because a dictator for 10 years named Sayyid Berry had murdered. 200,000 people of the ISEC tribe who wanted to break away and get away from his dictatorship and form an enclave called Somaliland versus Somali. Does she ever say that?

Better yet. Does she say, and I have another disclosure to make, my father was a well-known colonel in that army of aggression. And there have been accusations that he participated in the type of tactics that led to this genocide. Or she could have said, many of us who came from Somalia came when Syed Berry's regime fell. Not during the war, not during the genocide, when it fell. Because we were afraid that we had ties to that genocidal regime.

So we fled to America because if we had stayed in Somalia, there would have been retaliations from the people that we committed genocide upon. In other words, she could say, I can't really criticize my adopted country as trashy or the worst in the world because it saved my life coming here because my family was involved in committing a genocide of the type that I accuse Israel of committing. What am I trying to say? I'm trying to say that this socialist Islamist group has a whole list of complaints about this country that we're specifically. supposed to listen to and a holistic complaints about the only democracy in the Middle East Israel that we're supposed to listen to. But many of these fiercest critics are dual citizens. And when they're in their other country, they say nothing about its sins, and there are plenty

from settler colonialism to genocide, to apartheid, to war crimes. But they do blast the democracies for very sins. What's the whole point? We don't have to listen to this anymore. Anytime Mondami, any time El-Said, any time Ilya, anytime Ilya, anytime Hassan Parker starts listing a list of grievances about their country, first or second generation, we just said look in the mirror and then talk to us. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. Victor is a close friend of Dennis Prager and has had the privilege of working with his remarkable team at Prager You. Victor has appeared in several five-minute videos reaching millions worldwide.

Remarkably, more than 60% of Prager You's audience is under 35, the very generation who most needs our enduring American principles. At a time when education and media too often erode confidence in our country, Prager You, stands firm in defending truth, reason, and the ideas of Western civilization. We're proud to be part of the Prager You family. Please support Prager You with a tax-deductible donation today. Go to prageru.com slash VDH and give generously today. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.