The Eric Metaxas Show - #163 - Victor Davis Hanson

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Eric talks with Victor Davis Hanson about President Trump’s war strategy against Iran, the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure, and whether the regime can survive. They also discuss the 2026 midterms, the growing divide inside the American right, Tucker Carlson, JD Vance, Israel, the collapse of Europe, and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/

My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility.

Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters, July 31st. Hey there, folks. Today is Tuesday, July 21st. Yes. Yesterday, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969. And the first thing I have to say is that our guest in a few minutes is the great Victor Davis Hansen.

How do we get Victor Davis Hansen to appear on this show? Plain and simple, it's blackmail. If he doesn't come on the show, we don't. reveal stuff that we know about him and friends of his and he doesn't want that to happen. So he comes on the show. And that's a sweet deal for us because we don't have to do anything. He just comes on the show. So in a few minutes, we all get the benefit of the dirt that I have. Yeah. Okay, I might be kidding about that. We are so thrilled to get him on. I have to tell you, there are very few people in America right now who are doing the work that he is doing of helping us

understand the times in which we live. So in a couple of minutes, The great Victor Davis Hanson will be on this show. I wanted to share where I've been and where I'm going, and I don't mean metaphorically. I mean literally, I have been everywhere. You know that I was in Las Vegas. You know that a few weeks ago I was in Washington State at the Gorge, which is a natural amphitheater in the middle of nowhere, just about in the middle of nowhere. just about in the middle of nowhere,

two and a half hours from any major airport. And while it was there, I mean, it was really, it was, it was a he-man haters, what was that little rascals thing? It was the he-man haters club,

but it was like a he-man kind of thing. It was like 5,000 men wearing camo, and it was, it was fantastic. And I was given some gifts while I was there. Now, I also got stuff given to me, when I was in Las Vegas, and I want to relate the two.

For example, the event that happened in Washington State was called Freedom Con. Freedom Con, 26. The event that I was at in Las Vegas was called Freedom Fest, 2026. And I want to relate those two incidents for you to show you what I got at both of them, and I will use something that I got at the first event. to open the box that I got mailed to me from the second event. Are you following? And then when that's over five time,

I'm going to tell you where I'm going next, which involves Los Angeles, Nashville, Murfreesboro, England, doing Socrates and the city stuff in England, and then I'm going to be back in Dallas. On and on it goes. But okay, so while it was at Freedom Fest, I got a whole bunch of things. I got this crazy set of, this was gifts given to me

by the folks running at Josh McPherson. gave everybody who participated these magnificent cowboy boots. I don't have them to show you here, but there are these extraordinary cowboy boots and other stuff. But the one thing that I couldn't take on the plane is a bowie knife. This is the most beautiful, sharp bear and sun is the name of it. Bear and Sun Boehner. This is a weapon here.

You could kill people pretty quick with this. this is a real beautiful bowie knife that was given to me. And I thought, what am I going to do with that living in New York City? And then the package came from Feedemfest in Los Angeles. And I thought, how can you possibly open that up if you don't have a bowie knife? So I said, I'm going to use the buoy knife. I've already kind of pre-sliced it. But this, what I got here in this box, uh-oh, the guts are starting to come out.

We're going to have to bleed this out later. But what I got here, I'm excited about this. Basically, the head of Freedom Fest, Mark Scousen, read my book Revolution. And he decided every year at Freedom Fest they give out a book award. It's the Leonard E. Reed Award. That's actually the name of the man. Leonard E. Reed, get it? But that's his real name.

And he, uh-oh. his award, the Leonard E. Read Award is given to an author every year for a specific book. And this is the Freedom Fest, 2026, Leonard E. Reed Award for Revolution, the birth of the greatest nation, the history of the world. So I got this amazing award this year at Freedom Fest. It was pretty extraordinary. Kennedy, whom, you know, from Fox News was on hand to give this to me. And so I got this. But Mark Scousen, who gave it to me, he said, I'm the first person ever to win this award twice.

Because four years ago, at Freedom Fest 2022, I was awarded the Leonard E. Reid Book Award to me for my book, is atheism dead? So I am the only human being alive in the history of the world, or any world, who has won the Leonard E. Reed Award, not once, but twice. And here they are. And they're very similar.

They're not exactly the same because technology in creating these awards has improved. So the new one is even more beautiful. But these are the two Leonard E. Reed Awards. This is for his atheism dead. And if you haven't read that, I recommend it.

We're turning it into a TV series, as I have said. And this is the Leonard E. Reed Award for Revolution. but I am so gratified that Mark Scousen, who is one brilliant man who loves this country, that he saw fit to give me this award this year for my Revolution books. I want to say thank you to Mark Scousen and to Freedom Fest for inviting me to be a part of what happened there. It was just absolutely wonderful. And I've got to get a mantle piece to put these on because they're just so beautiful.

I'll just leave them there for now until Victor Davis Hanson. comes on the program. But Chris, you and I were going to talk about, I've been traveling so much that it's just, it's been, it's been crazy. I was in Maine this week. So wait, today is, I think I said Tuesday. Yesterday I came home from Maine.

Suzanne and I were in Maine over the weekend in Bangor, Maine. It's pronounced Bangor, not Bangor, Bangor, Maine. And I spoke at an event Sunday night in the, huge auditorium in the Susan Collins Center. Of course, it's Maine, so Senator Collins. And it was an extraordinary gathering, I have to say. It was called pray for Maine. Something is happening in Maine. Something's happening in a lot of these great states around the country that have been, you know, ultra blue, but people are waking up. So I was there for that. Got home yesterday. But I had a, we had lobster. We had Maine lobster because you have to, you know, at least. once a year, you know, we would like to get lobster in the summer, but to get it into Maine,

it was, it was spectacular. So we loved that, but this week, uh, I mentioned it, I'm going to Nashville. I'm doing two book events at the landmark bookstore in Franklin, Tennessee. So that's right next to Nashville. Two, the first one sold out quick. And the second one is already more than half sold out. That is this Friday, this Friday 2 p.m. event. The 6 p.m. event is sold out. But if you want to come, I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to be doing, but I'm going to be doing something in the landmark bookstore in Franklin, Tennessee, this Friday. On Saturday and on Sunday morning, I'm going to be speaking in Murfreesboro, at World Outreach Church. That's our friend Alan Jackson. That church has had me as a guest more than any other church in America by more than double.

I think I've spoken there 12 times in 12 years every year, at least they have me back. I love that church. It really is just a wonderful, wonderful church. So I'll be in Murfreesboro. I am going straight from there to JFK Airport here in New York because we are then flying to England for Socrates in the city. We have a retreat next week, all week. Socrates in the city, in Oxford, England.

I'm going to be interviewing all kinds of people. I can't even remember now the names of all the people that I'm going to be interviewing. But I've got five big interviews. Obviously, we'll get them online. And I think next week, while I'm away, Chris, you can back me up on this. We're going to be airing some of our favorite Socrates episodes on this program, or at least a couple of them, whatever. There's a lot of episodes deep recorded that we think are.

podcast audience will like. So we're going to pick me. We honestly don't have time for all of them. So go to Socrates and city.com to find out more. But we're going to be giving you some breadcrumbs, an appetizer, some of the sport. Just some of the better ones. So, yeah, Socrates in Oxford, you're going to be there. You've been there before.

The list that I have is an ideal bigger. Is that how you say it? I'm reading his book right now. It's about colonialism. It's a heavy. amazing book. I'm going to read it so you don't have to, but I'm going to interview him next week. Nigel, Sir, Nigel Bigger. Yeah, he's a big deal. He's a big deal. He's a sir. He may have a knight's sword. Yeah. So you can bring your knife. Yeah. Yeah, that reminds me,

this is the American version and I'm going to go with this. No, I better sheath my sword now. And I say that quite literally. John Lennox, it's just a lot of fluff. He's got nothing to say. I'm talking to John Lennox. There's a lot of. There's a lock. on. But that's all next week. After that, I fly to Dallas, Texas. I'm speaking at Elevate Church in Frisco, Texas. That's August 2nd. And on and on it goes. The weekend after that, I go to South Carolina. Anyway, we're at a time for now. We're going to go to our friend Victor Davis Hanson. Here it is. When we look at the headlines coming out of Iran and Israel right now, the fog of war is real. It's hard to know whom to trust. That same feeling of Confucian.

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insurance companies. If you're turning 65 or just have questions about your current coverage, give them a call at 571-421-1-1253. That's 571-421-1253. It's free, it's quick, and it's the kind of honest guidance we need more of today. Call chapter and get the peace of mind you need. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program. Today, I'm told, is Tuesday, July 21st. And it is our great fortune today. I don't believe in fortune, to have the great Victor Davis Hansen as my guest. Victor, welcome back. Thank you for having me, Eric. Well, you're one of the tiny, tiny handful of people who helped me process what we're going through usually as a nation. And I want to ask you about where you think we are with the Iran war. I have to say up front,

generally speaking, I trust this president. He clearly doesn't say everything. And a lot of the mainstream media can't handle that. They wanted them to telegraph every punch, which is really not a good way to fight. But what is your sense of where we are right now today? Well, I think we're doing a lot more damage and we're told. And that half-century, half-trillion-dollar military, industrial nuclear complex is pretty much. destroyed. They do have some launchers here and there that are decentralized. And I think they've

done in the last seven or eight days a lot of damage to the ability for them to forcibly keep the straight clothes. So what I think most people want, they don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. They do not want them to close the straight. They would prefer that regime not in power, but they don't want ground troops. And out of all of that, I think Trump has come up with a strategy that he's going to spend he spent over a week maybe a week or two more and do so much damage to the infrastructure of Iran that they will not be able to exercise their nefarious power in the region, at least as they have been for a long time. And then he will probably delegate a flotilla of ships. He has air bases in the region and try to tell the Europeans and the Japanese

and South Koreans, we were aware. willing to lead you back and forth into the straight, your tankers, and we will keep it open, but you have to help us. And then he'll go home, and I think he'll think, he can say, I think, legitimately that they will not have a nuclear weapon probably for a decade or more. And then he will say, they have no air defenses. And any time that I see that they're working on, I can always send the B-2s in as they did before. So I think that's how he's going to try that square that circle. And if he were to get out by early August, I would have think that the latter part of August, September and October, prices would fall. He's been given a great gift with a Democratic

socialist rhetoric and redistricting and the Supreme Court decision on racial gerrymanding and some good economic news. So I'd say if he could get out by mid-by-mid August, he would have a 50-50 chance of pulling onto the house. A 50-50 chance. I would like better than that in terms of the odds. That's, it's a horrifying thing to imagine that the House could be controlled by the Democrats. Obviously, the president is keenly aware of this. So I guess we wonder what he's thinking behind the scenes because he's not, it's not something he would take lightly. No, but we got to remember that 39 out of the last 41 midterms, the party and the White House lost seats.

and usually if they had a small margin control of the house. So his history is against the incumbent. That being said, there are things are starting to move his way. The generic poll of favorability is now really hurt the Democrats. They were plus eight ahead. I think they're down to plus four plus three. They're going to pick up anywhere from eight to ten seats just through the two redistricting, the Supreme Court decision and the legislatures.

red states. And the inflation news was good. The GDP news was good. The foreign investment news. The oil production is good. So there's things heading in the right direction from the big, beautiful bill of tax reduction, deregulation, etc. And again, I don't think anybody believe we would ever get to this point where some Jacobin small, a group of people, and largely left-wing urban enclaves would hijack the party, intimidate them, and then try to imprint on the Democrats an overtly anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, anti-American agenda that has no residence anywhere else and then showcase people like Zoran Mandami or Hassan Piker or any of these people who were extremists.

So that was an unforeseen gift, and I think it's going to get worse for the Democrats in the next 90 days. Well, what's, of course, also unforeseen is what some are calling the woke right. I don't know if you ever a comment on Tucker opening the door to Nick Fuentes and his gang or Candace Owens. It's a bizarre phenomenon that on, I still don't know how we can call it the right, but the people that were formally on the right seem to have opened the door to these things and have now openly stood against the president and Tucker against the Republican Party.

I mean, when you talk about things that we couldn't have predicted a year ago, I still don't know what to make of it. Yeah, I don't either. Tucker Carlson, I was on his show for, I think, eight years every Monday night. He used to give pretty well-reason arguments to why we should be afraid of the Islamic takeover of Europe, for example, or radical Islam within the United States. and he supported Israel.

Megan Kelly gave a year ago, she gave a very well-thought-out attack on radical Islam. Candice Owens was a different case altogether, and I think she was always unstable, and whether it was Macron's wife being a man or the Mossad, I think she's discredited and she's not part of the party. But what we're getting at some point, And I guess what I'm saying is I like J.D. Vance, but when J.D. Vance says Israel can't bomb its way out to victory, or he says that he's really found moderates among the Iranian delegation and it might usher in a new Middle East.

Or he says things to that nature. It gives Tucker and those other people confidence to keep going, is what I'm saying. Not that he is himself. He's not an anti-Sem. J.D. Vance is not an anti-Semite. He's a very loyal person to Trump, but he's getting battered. The Wall Street Journal attacks him almost every week. And at some point, he's going to have to come out, I think,

and reaffirm his support for the Rubio Trump, MAGA agenda as it pertains to Israel, Jews, etc. Just because of these people. These people really do feel that he is their advocate. Well, that's the thing. That's the thing. Kimberly Strassel in The Wall Street Journal hit J.D. Vance very hard. And I thought, wow, he has to respond to this.

But it's a funny thing because we're living in a world now where if you don't respond to certain things, I mean, Megan Kelly allowing the vicious, vicious attacks to Erica Kirk to go on and on and on. We're living in very strange times right now, and it seems like J.D. Van says, I don't know where he stands on these things, but it is curious that you have to do, I mean, you and I will remember Bill Clinton's famous Sister Soldier moment in 1992, where he slaps down the quote unquote raptivist. I mean, the only we remember Sister Soldier is because of this moment. But it is interesting. Buckley did the same thing. in the 60s with the John Birch Society, where you simply say, there's a line here, we have to reject people on the other side of the side. We have to bring it up.

We have to talk about it. And that's something that J.D. Vance hasn't done, and I find it at least curious, if not confusing. Yeah, I think his strategy, and this is just speculation is, he understands that 40% of, the electorate are white working class voters without college degrees, and they are 67, 68 percent mega voters, and they've made the difference. They have abandoned the Democratic Party. And his future,

both from his own background and his own political positions, he wants to keep that margin because he will not do as well with minorities as other Republicans might do. And so I think he keeps saying, talk and he has legitimate legitimate points of argument. He says, you know, they were the losers of globalization. They can't afford homes. They've been suffering from

imported drugs, open borders, all of that. And they're very patriotic and they were discriminated by DEI and all that. But at some point that's not going to get you elected. And I'm just talking now in crass political terms.

So he's going to lose a lot of people, and they're not just crazy, never Trumpers. There are people who like him that are conservative, that were all in on him being the next nominee. But they're very, very upset because I've talked to hundreds of them. And they feel that he didn't come out strongly against Nick Buentes. As you point out, he did not come out against Tucker. and he said things himself that could be interpreted that he detests Netanyahu. He doesn't like Israel, and he's suspicious of why they have supports. And when he says things like he's still troubled by the Charlie Kirk thing or the Mossad,

or there's some things we'll never know about Epstein, all of that that reinforces that sense that he is too close to people that are unstable. Well, I just, at this point, what fascinates me, I think what Tucker has done is absolutely despicable. He has really hurt Turning Point. If he was ever any friend to Charlie Kirk, he would do all he could to help Turning Point. He really has hurt a turning point, put them in a difficult position. He certainly hurt the Heritage Foundation. He's playing some game where he doesn't seem to care about these things. And now, of course, he has publicly turned against the Republican Party.

I mean, before that, he turned against Trump. And, you know, at some point, you just wonder who he's speaking to. I have no idea who Candace Owens is speaking to. But we know in our lifetime, you know, the National Enquirer could always make money. There are always people out there who will believe that Macron is married to a woman and will take that seriously. I mean, there's just a level of madness. But I guess to me, the viciousness that Nick Fuentes has expressed on any number of topics, extraordinary, vile viciousness.

And he always despised and was jealous of Charlie Kirk. If there ever were a time to say, this guy is not of our tribe. And anybody you have to choose. You follow Charlie Kirk, or do you follow Charlie Kirk? or do you follow Nick Fuentes, or do you follow Charlie Kirk or do you follow Candice Owens? We need leaders who are willing to do that. Trump is the only one who has been willing to do that, it seems to me. But we need more voices like that.

And I think that Megan Kelly in that same group, they've just done themselves effectively fatal damage, it seems to me. Yeah. And I think it's they, what they do, I think in Tucker's case, he tries. to identify with the heritage people or he tries to identify with J.D. Vance. And then he puts them in a position where he wants to be extreme and then he wants to force them to make a choice. And if they hesitate, then he takes that as an endorsement and gets more emboldened. So at some point, people are going to have to see that he's playing them. And that's, I don't know, for the algorithms or the clicks or the bots or whatever it is,

but they need to come out and say, this administration is a firm supporter of Israel. This administration does not believe in a conspiracy of Jews in the shadows that are running things. This administration is firmly pro-capitalism, and it abhors what's going on with the Democratic Socialists. I only say that because Tucker has talked very effusively of Graham Platner and the socialist agenda. Now, I'm unaware of that. Can you repeat that?

Because I can hardly believe what you just said. Yeah, he said he was going to have him on his show. He'd like to interview him. And so it's part of this new Republican, new right. There was very good things that people like Oren Casson that people did that called for a redirection of attention to closing the border and helping the white working class that was forgotten. globalization. But the next step beyond that is sort of a quasi-socialism. And you tie that in with the Jews running Wall Street and the financiers and the disloyal big techies and all of that stuff. So I think he's going to have to come out and just say, I want to reiterate my support for

the Donald Trump agenda, both economically, culturally, socially, politically, politically, politically and in foreign affairs. And I don't, I do think his forte is domestic affairs. He's 42 years old. I don't think, you're talking about J.D. Vance now. Yeah, yes. I wouldn't have put him in that spot. Let me phrase it that way. I wouldn't have put him in that spot of being a chief negotiator over the Iran deal when you have somebody like Rubio and others in the state department. because what he said about trusting or hoping that he's found moderates among the Iranian delegation, that's just a complete amnesia of the last 47 years of both Democrats and Republicans who've dealt with that regime. There is no moderate group. If there are a moderate group, they're going to be shot in Iran.

It's like saying there's a moderate Nazi group or there's a moderate group around Stalin. doesn't exist. Well, we're, I mean, it does get confusing. And part of the reason it gets confusing is because President Trump is deliberately confusing. And I say that in a positive way. He's playing the game. He'll say things. And you never know exactly what he's doing, which I think is part of his genius.

But I guess what many people wonder is whether this regime can go away. I mean, it would be everybody's fondest dream, at least I would say, that, that, that, you know, the son of the Shah would step in and that we could return to the 1970s or some version of that because we're dealing with maniacs. We're dealing with, you know, Armageddon loving lunatics, theocrats. And I don't know. I guess now that we have started this war with them, these hostilities, you know, we, we, might have left it alone. I don't think we should have. But now that we're here, I just don't know where it can go. I just don't see them ever doing the right thing. Let's put it that way. No, they will never. But, you know, when the fall, the Berlin Wall fell, it took two to six months

for the Warsaw Pact states to throw off communism and two years for the Russians. So I think what Trump has done, he's so there. No one. ever liked that regime, but they were afraid because that that regime would kill them, but they were also told by that regime, you may not like us, but we are the power in the Middle East. We brought respect back to Iran, back to the Shia underdog version of Islam. We are a revolutionary society. The Gulf states are terrified of us, and we have appendages all over the Middle East, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Shia groups in Iraq, and in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and we're, we've terrified with Europe and no American president will ever touch us.

And we're on our road to dominance. And that's what they, and there's a lot of that was true. And now Trump has completely humiliated them. They can't, they can't even get water. They can't get food. They have no army. They have no. And so that turmoil, if we can keep, even after we stop the bombing and we go back, I think that will be an ongoing process.

because they're going to eventually get some money from relaxed sanctions, and you know what they're going to do. They're going to spend it on this to replace this half trillion dollars they've lost at the expense of their own people. I do think that we need, if the Israelis are not going to come in, we need to target the Islamic Revolutionary Guard more. I know Americans don't like that idea, but we need to really target them. I think we should be trying to arm the people to the extent that there's people we can work with.

Well, I certainly agree with that. And I don't know. Why would you say the American people don't like that? What do you mean? Oh, I think the idea of targeted assassinations or, you know, when we go out, like the Israelis, one of the problems we're having right now is when we stopped, we were taking out the difficult, reinforced targets, the nuclear facilities, not that there was a, clear divide, but we were not targeting as much or if at all the key members of that government

that were theocratic and Islamic, the crazy people that run the country. Israel was. They had much better intelligence than we were, and that was their strategy. Not that they didn't hit other targets, but their strategy was to hit these people, hit their industries, hit their businesses, kill them. And we haven't done that to the same degree in the last hundred days. We're typically, for tat we're going after launchers, Navy. We're trying to stop their ability to shut down the strait. Israel's strategy was when we want to destroy the regime. And that we relied on, you know, a partnership with us of doing the other necessary things.

But now that Israel's, and you notice one thing, Eric, they've shot missiles into the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi, but they do not dare send missiles into Israel. And that's because they know the Israelis, know where they are and they're going to target them. The first thing, they send one missile into Israel and they're going to get 300 combat aircraft over their skies, targeting what's ever left of the Revolutionary Guard. But I think that's, we need to concentrate on that

and arming the people and creating enough tensions that we can so emasculate their ability to make war and then leave them in a turmoil and hoping that the people, and then we can always come back. Everybody said, well, you can't just do it. You don't know what happened to the nuclear enrichment. Well, I think most people agree it's in Pickax Mountain,

and we can always hit it with B2 bombers. I don't know if it'll go that deep, but as long as they don't have any air defenses and as long as Trump is president for the next two and a half years, we have a lot of options. We don't have to stay doing what we're doing right now, once we achieve a level of destruction that makes it very hard for them for 10 or 12 years to rearm and be a threat to anybody.

Well, the big question that I always have that's over all of this stuff is why do I have to find you to hear this stuff? You and Rod Martin are the only two voices that make sense of what the president is doing and give us hope. The mainstream media, I mean, if you're listening to God forbid CNN, they are, they're on another page. They pretend as though this has been a disaster. We should have, it's been humiliating for us.

Why are they so stuck on that narrative? Is it just because they hate Trump? I know that's most of it. No, it's not just that they hate Trump. They are terrified that in the next 90 days, we could achieve a dramatic end to the, the Iranian ability to make war and leave the straight open, and gas prices would get down to $60 or $65 a barrel or oil prices,

and gas would get down below $3 a gallon. And then the Republicans would have their midterm advertising campaign, and they would say seven presidents said that they were going to stop them from getting a bomb, and then they would just show pictures of a devastated Iranian military, infrastructure's S campaign and said only one president did it and he did it for you and price of oil and then they know they know that this economy is is working as in terms of GDP as I said inflation on employment foreign investment AI all these new technologies robotics genetic we've we captured the lead in all of that we're pumping more oil and gas in any country in

the history of civilization. So there's a lot of positives. And I think the Democrats are just terrified of that. And when they thought that, you know, we're going to tit for tat redistricting, they didn't look at the map and say, wow, there's more red legislatures that can do that than there's blue legislature. Or wow, the Supreme Court really did say it's illegal to racial gerrymandering. They had no idea that was going to happen. And then they had no idea, I think. they kind of wrote off the Democratic Socialists. They kind of romanced them and played around with them, but they didn't really understand who these people are.

They're Stalinists. And they hate Stalinists in Bolsheviks. They always hate people on their side that are moderate more than they do the enemy. You know that from your study in communism. And they despise Chuck Schumer. They despise Heikung Jeffrey. And so that's what they're afraid of that for the, you know, one of the few times in American.

history and incumbent president can retain the House and the Senate. And if he does that, he's got a lot of things he can do in the next two years. And one of the things to stop it, the only thing they can see to stop it is the Iran war. They've got to say it's a complete disaster. And, you know, if you had said to any of the Democrats, Donald Trump is going to go in to the Middle East, and he is going to destroy the ability of the Iranian nation, one and a half times the size of Texas, 93 million people, and he's going to destroy utterly their industrial, nuclear, military complex. It's going to be tragic, but we're going to lose 16 people in that.

They wouldn't have believed it. That was the terror. I mean, every – I went back and looked at what every president said. Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton. Clinton, George W. Bush, you name it. Barack Obama, they all said Iran can't have a bomb. Iran can't do this. Iran can't do this. And then the next thing you'd hear editorial writers say, but don't get near those people.

They're crazy. They're dangerous. It's not like the Arab countries. This is not Saddam Hussein. This is a revolutionary, oil-rich, dangerous entity that we do not want to get in. They've killed 1,600 Americans in. Iraq and Afghanistan was shaped charges. They blew up the American embassy in Beirut. They killed us our Marine.

They've killed more people, more of our people than any other group except al-Qaeda. So they had a reputation that people just were afraid of, especially with their appendages. They were kept bragging ring of fire. Don't attack around because you know what? They've got 200,000 rockets with Hamas and the Houthis and Hezbollah, and they'll just surround Israel and blow it to smet their ring. I think we forgot that was their reputation because how easily Israel, the United States destroyed their era. They were a paper tiger. They had never fought a war except against Iraq and they hadn't done very well for 10 years.

They had a much bigger population than Iraq did, and they did not do well. And Khomeini was the one who said, I hate to say this. This is horrible, but I want to stop this. He was losing. So there's no evidence that that regime other than terror was ever as for more formidable as it said it was and what people said it was. They were bullies, they were terrorists, they were killers. But only Trump had an instinct that you could do that. And then left can't believe that he did it.

And so they're writing the narrative all the way to November 3rd and are going to say this was a disaster. We lost. It's terrible. And then. But the key is it don't. Trump at some key day where he thinks he's finally finished their ability to make war for a decade. He's got to stop and get back out and turn it over to the Navy to keep the straight open. For this point, if he can keep the straight open, I think he can militarily easily.

And in tomb that enrich uranium, I don't think there'll be a problem. He's done so much damage to them. I still can't get over the fact that you said a few minutes ago that Tucker Carlson is going to interview Graham Platner. There's really something so desperate about this kind of thing. I'm just shocked. Well, he was curious. He said that he'd like to interview him. I don't know if he has it.

I don't follow him. But he was talking about his populist agendas. I understand it. I'm not sure about that. But Tucker's become, what's the word for it? He's become a right-wing populist. And he's a, he's very similar in his, he's very similar to the Pat Buchanan,

those two runs that Pat did for presidency. And Pat Buchanan bordered on anti-Semitism. And he was anti-Israel. He was anti-foreign, any foreign intervention. And he was prescient about globalization. He saw that he was pro- terror of all of that. He was a forerunner of, you know, along with the Tea Party in Moscow, Faroe and others of the MAGA movement. Yeah. The difference between Trump is he's not an

isolationist and he is a populist, but he's a Jacksonian. His attitude is my foremost concern is I want the United States to be preeminent in every aspect, energy, economics, military. I don't want to start wars, but if anybody challenges our interest or attacks us or threatens us, I'm going to retaliate disproportionately against them. That's what he always was. He killed Soleimani. He killed Baghdadi. He killed, wiped out the Wagner group. He took out Maduro. That's what he always does. It wasn't endless wars. It was, I'm going to do what it takes. If China is controlling the basically trying to control the Panama Canal, I'm going to threaten them to get them out. And that's not what Tucker or the

the isolationist wanted. I don't know if you have a moment to talk about Europe. I sort of forgot Europe existed. I'm flying there this weekend. What in the world, if ever anyone had ever marginalized Europe, Donald Trump has just, it's just fascinating to me what he's been able to do. What is your sense of the future of what we used to call Europe? I think we're all very sad about it.

I don't think we're angry at Europe. It's just we're watching a 450 million person civilization crumble. Their energy is three to four times higher than ours. They have rich deposits in the North Sea. They have fracking. They could frack natural gas in France. They could do all sorts of things. They have these open borders.

They have 16% of the population in Germany of uninsimilarate Muslims. They're terrified of this minority of Muslim. These are the people who fought the Battle of Waterloo. These are the people who fought World War II. I mean, and they're terrified of rag-tag terrorist and unassimlet population. Well, their leaders are terrified. I don't know that the rank and file European. Well, that's the question.

Absolutely. You're right. You say, what happened to Europe? We're talking about the government, but we don't know to what degree the Europeans are still Europeans. And they'll rise up and fill these people out. I think also, I think some Americans are a little. I am a little embarrassed because I think a lot of the bad ideas that they embraced, we gave them. And we all say that we inherited Michelle Foucault and Derry Dahl and all that crazy postmodernism from France or the Frankfurt School from Germany.

But the whole idea, this radical open borders and DEI and the Green, the New Green New Deal, that came from America. They embraced a lot of stuff that we have completely rejected now under Trump. And so you just want to shake them and say, you're Europeans, you're 450 million strong. Why do you have a GDP of only 20 trillion when we have 100 million people fewer than you? And we have 31 trillion, 33% larger GDP than you do. And your EU was supposed to be out competing us. We were told at the millennium by 2030, you would be the biggest economy in the world because you have the skilled. It's almost 500 billion people.

And yet we're out producing them and we're all producing the Chinese that have a billion point four. Well, I guess the question is, do you think that the right-wing parties have the ability to ascend? I don't know what Marine Le Pen is doing or what, I mean, I saw an interview with Tommy Robinson. I guess just the other day, Tammy Peterson was speaking to him. And he's speaking like someone that he understands this perfectly well. The question is whether Rupert Lowe and others will be able to eventually form a government or to do anything. Because you know there are people who understand this, but the question is can they get into power? Yeah.

I don't think we really appreciate what we would call illegal, unconstitutional in our idea, how they outlawed parties, they outlaw free speech, they hunt down people, they surveil them, they jail them. So they have a lot of institutional weapons to stop any opposition from the right. From the left, they don't, they incorporate it. But it's just a question of, I don't know if Tommy Robinson or Le Pen or the alternative from Doisseland, if they have people that will appeal to more than 30 or 40 percent, but they surely can make in that parliamentary system that they have. If they're allowed to participate, they can make coalitions and bring conservatives over to their side.

Part of the problem in Britain is the conservative party turned out sort of like our Rhinel party, but even to a greater degree, it just abandoned the right. So I hope it's not too late, but they're completely disarmed until recently. There are socialistic policies don't work. They have a 1.3 fertility rate. They're not producing fossil fuels that would save them. They don't want to enforce their borders. They can't deal their idea.

I guess their problem is, unlike us, that had a history of multiracialism and integration assimilation, they didn't. So when they brought it, and we brought in people that were problematic from the third world, but until recently, most of them came from Latin American

and were Christian. and they were easier to simulate. They were proximate, and we had a lot more experience in integration, inter-American. They didn't. They brought in some of the most radical places in the world from the distant Middle East. And they had a history. The French should have known that in Algeria, that that did not work, bringing in a lot of people from Algeria in the early 1960s. And yet they did it.

It's almost nihilistic. It's very hard to explain, Eric. why a very successful birthplace of Western civilization would commit collective suicide. You say it's almost nealistic. I think it is nealistic. And I think that's part of the tragedy of the West. I mean, Tom Holland writes about it in his book on Christianity Dominion, that if you twist it in a certain direction, it eats itself, basically.

And you see this, I mean, I saw this in the Odysseus, in the Odyssey film. I don't know if you. I haven't seen it. Let me just say it's worth, it's definitely worth missing. If it's possible, I don't know if it's possible for you to miss it. But if miss it if you can, try. But it's one of these things where, you know, there's some good things about it. But it's basically a subversion of the West.

And I don't know how intentional that is or if that's just the default mode of the Hollywood elites or the people, the elites, you know, the Western elites who they're uncomfortable with anything. celebratory, anything heroic or inspirational. They think, no, we've got too much guilt, better to rithe and to wring our hands and to apologize and to feel uncomfortable, better to do that than to celebrate anything. And we've saw, I mean, I saw that recently in the PBS, Ken Burns' version of the American Revolution. You think it's like watching a Rocky movie and coming out and saying, you know, I don't know if there were who the hero was.

I'm not really clear on if there was a good guy. I feel that's who the Western elites have become. And so the Odyssey, it's sort of an apology. You can see Matt Damon is kind of, he's just uncomfortable with, he's basically apologizing for the Trojan horse and for Troy. And it sounds like I'm making it up, but that's basically what it is. I'm supposed to see it Friday.

I'll see it Friday and write a review. From what you're talking about, and I wrote a little bit about the idea that, Homer was sexist when he wasn't at all. I mean, he empowered so many female characters in that Odyssey. But from what you say, I almost miss Kirk Douglas. Remember his, Ulysses movie. Well, but that's kind of the point.

You want Kirk Douglas. You want it to be at least somewhat celebratory and fun that you could bring the whole family. This is an epic, the Western epic. And he manages to just make it, you know, modern in the sense that we can't we don't really want to celebrate. We've got too much to be guilty about. And he makes it, he actually invents a lot of stuff that is, it is just strange. But I, it's, and I keep saying, he basically insults the viewer right up front.

You know, you have an African American in the opening scene who's supposed to be a Homeric hero. And then pretty soon we cut to Ellen Page, this young woman who is supposed to be a male Homeric hero, who's at the center of the story and at the center of guilt-tripping Odysseus, that what he's done is so terrible. It's just, it's kind of bizarre. I'm glad you'll be writing a review about it. I'm just, I'm grateful for your take on so many things, Victor. Thanks for coming on the program,

and I really look forward to reading what you have to write about the Odyssey. Thank you so much. Thank you, Eric, for having me. My Pillow's second annual mega sale is finally here. Get our patented premium MyPillows that adjust to your exact individual needs to give you the best sleep of your life. When I got my pillow, I'm asleep almost immediately. I stay asleep at night and I wake up more well-rested in the morning. Now for the lowest price ever.

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