The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Trump or the Left—Who Really Broke the Rules First?

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

From JFK appointing his brother as Attorney General to Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and Stacey Abrams denying election results, the historical record shows the Left has followed every play in their weaponization playbook.   The Left’s outrage at Trump’s recent appointment of Todd Blanche as Attorney General was another prime example that their accusations almost always mirror their past conduct. The Alliance for Secure AI - Visit http://www.secureainow.org Learn how we're working to mitigate risks and protect humanity in the advanced AI revolution. 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. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if.

Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. The left in general and Democrats in particular have been criticizing a lot of things that this administration has done. came up with the confirmation hearings of Attorney General Todd Blanche. People suggested that he had too close a relationship as a personal attorney, therefore there would be an incestuous relationship between the DOJ and the White House. Who broke that standard?

I think it was broken during the JFK administration. Anytime somebody on the left accuses the Trump administration of a misuse of government, it's likely a reflection that they've already done that themselves. I'm Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI. We're working every day to make sure that AI is safe, secure, and aligned with American values. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. Recently, the left in general and Democrats in particular, have been criticizing a lot of things that this administration has done. This came up with the confirmation hearings of Attorney General Talk.

Blanche, and people suggested that though he may have been qualified, he had too close a relationship as a personal attorney or he acted in a legal capacity with Donald Trump, and therefore there would be an incestuous relationship between the DOJ and the White House. But who broke that standard? I think it was broken during the JFK administration. John F. Kennedy, Democratic President, appointed his brook. brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as Attorney General, they conferred daily. If we were worried that that was an aberration, remember Eric Holder bragged that he was, quote, Obama's wingman.

So the Democrats have had a long history of close relationship between the DOJ and the White House. we've been told that the Democratic Party is very angry because some local, i.e. state or county or municipal prosecutors might take a look at Anthony Fauci and see if he had criminal exposure other than federal exposure. And people said, well, what business do these local prosecutors have looking at Anthony Fauci, who was a federal bureau? bureaucrat, and if he did anything wrong, it would be a federal offense. You can't have freelancing prosecutors all over the United States going after. Yes, you can. We established that principle with Donald Trump. Remember that Latita James went after him for a real estate deal in which the Deutsche Bank, the lender had no problem with the loan as it was conducted. She was the state attorney of New York. Alvin Bragg,

could not get Donald Trump on anything other than to bootstrap a federal campaign violation that even federal prosecutors didn't want to touch. He was just the municipal DA of Manhattan. Fannie Willis met her paramour, Nathan Wade, who was a legal part of her legal team. He met in the White House with Joe Biden, and she was only a Fulton County prosecutor. So long ago, we dispense with the idea that regional or local or state or county prosecutors can't go after a high-profile federal official, and there's nobody more high-profile than the United States president. Then we heard last week that they were worried that Donald Trump's IRS may be too partisan. I think they destroyed that barrier as well.

Do you remember Lois Lerner, 2019, 2020? she was pretty much conducting special audits of Tea Party groups and other conservative-affiliated groups to make sure they did not get nonprofit status, and that was going into the election year 2012. Do we remember the New York legislature when Donald Trump's tax returns were released illegally by, the federal IRS, the legislature in New York piled on and said, we'll pass a bill that says anybody this year, i.e. Trump, who is under federal audit and his tax returns are subpoenaed by a congressional committee once they saw them, we're going to turn over his confidential state records as well. That was about as weaponizing the state and federal IRS as you could imagine. How about election? denialism. Hillary Clinton, you remember anybody, the 2012, excuse me, 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, she lost the electoral college, she won the popular vote. What did she say almost immediately that Donald Trump was not legitimately elected? Other words, he wasn't our real president. Was she an outlier?

No. Former President Jimmy Carter said that Donald Trump was not a legitimate president. He was an election denialist. Stacey Abrams, you remember her? She ran for governor of Georgia and was lost by 50,000 votes. She toured the country for two years and said she was the real governor of Georgia. She won that election. She was really an election denialist.

Do we remember in 2000? 2000, when George W. Bush beat Al Gore. Al Gore said that he really didn't lose the key state and swing state of Florida. Later, the New York Times conducted an affiliated investigation of the county returns that Al Gore has sued to get a hold of, and they looked at them, and guess what? George W. Bush did win Florida, and with Florida won the election. Did that stop the left? No, they said that George W. Bush was selected. He was not elected. Do you remember that?

You remember the 2004 election when a large contingent of the Democratic House refused to honor the vote in Ohio and voted not to accept George Bush's victory, a popular vote victory in Ohio that put him over the top? So that bar was destroyed a long time ago, and it's pretty low or non-existent that you'd don't deny an election result. That's what the left taught us, at least. We were told that the Supreme Court of the United States is too weaponized, too weaponized, too consistently conservative voting in a block. There's been a lot of studies. One of them showed that the six justice majority votes anywhere from 60 to 64 percent in line with their conservative philosophy in cases that come up with an ideological theme to them. And how about our three left-wing Democratic judges? The same

study found that they are a little bit more partisan, up to 70 percent of ideological cases, they vote consistently with the left. In other words, if you believe in a weaponized Supreme Court, the greatest offenders are the three liberal judges, which you don't hear. We're talking about weaponize FBI a lot. Cash Patal has weaponized the FBI. I don't think he has, but if he were to weaponize it, he would be tutored by James Comey. Remember James Comey? He 245 times before a House Oversight Committee said he couldn't remember or he didn't know or he had amnesia. He inaugurated the bogus Operation Crossfire effort to promulgate the lie that Donald Trump was a Russian asset.

That was during the campaign. Had that lie been widely publicized and widely believed it would have affected the election, Donald Trump wouldn't have won. No sooner had Donald Trump been elected. And then with Operation 2, that was Oxford comma. They tried to suggest the sitting president had had Russian ties. That was a lie, too. Andrew McCabe, his interim successor, lied four times under oath. on ideological or political matters.

His lawyer, Klein Smith, Kevin Kleinsmith, forged a document and submitted it to a FISA court. That was an FBI lawyer. I could go on with Robert Mueller, the Mueller investigation claiming under oath he didn't know what the steel dossier was. It prompted his very appointment. I would say the FBI was pretty weaponized and politicized by the time Cash Patel got there. Finally, we hear that it's very unfair to bring in Anthony Fauci before a congressional committee. Why would you try to find something that was criminal in the activity of a federal bureaucrat? After all, he's a member of government.

Can he just say, I don't want to come? Or when he's there, can he just answer a question? Why would he be forced unless the questions were designed to embarrass him, forced to take the Well, we crossed that river a long time ago when Congress subpoenaed for no real criminal activity. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, former White House aides, and both of them refused to participate. In other words, they refused to show up and plead the Fifth Amendment like Anthony Fauci. And guess what? They arrested Peter Navarro on the street with shackles.

Both of them served four-month. sentences in jail. They jailed them. The Congress had them jailed. And there we come to domestic spy, and we said, Donald Trump is spying on his enemies. He's conducting a surveillance state. It's not true, but if it were true, where did he get that idea? Well, Barack Obama, remember, surveil the phone data of Associated Press reporters. They also went after Fox reporter, James Rosen. I think they even subpoenaed the calls he made to his grandmother. And then, of course, Jack Smith, he went to the National Archives to get the phone data of prominent senators and congressmen that he felt were ideological adversaries maybe. He not only got their phone data,

but he got their actual text messages. What's my point in all this? Long ago, the Democratic Party and the left believe that any means necessary were justified for their noble ends of mandated equality. And we've seen president after president on the left do that. And so it's the height of irony, or maybe not irony, but projectionism. So I'll leave you with the idea that any time somebody on the left accuses that Trump administration of a misuse of government, it's likely a reflection that they've already done that themselves. Thank you very much, 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. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.