Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.
Jack Fowler: Well, Victor, let’s get you to talk about Tulsi Gabbard, who is resigning for—her husband has a rare form of bone cancer. Some people have been nasty. Let me read one of the nasty things, if I can find it. You’ll forgive me, my notes are all jumbled. But our favorite person in the world, the state— the senator from California, the—
Yes. Here’s what Adam Schiff had to say. I can’t stand this guy. “My thoughts go out to Tulsi Gabbard and her family, and her husband battles a serious health problem. I hope and pray that he makes a speedy—” Where’s the but? Yeah, a but’s coming. “But let’s be clear, Tulsi Gabbard’s only positive contribution to our nation’s national security is her resignation.
She politicized intelligence. She dismantled …” Who is he to say that? “She dismantled critical agencies keeping America safe. She weaponized the IC to pursue baseless election fraud claims and more. We must ensure that her tenure represents a terrible exception at DNI and not the new normal,” blah, blah, blah.
Shut up, Adam. Your thoughts? Adam,
Victor Davis Hanson: Adam, you were censured by the U.S. Congress. You were censured. And the reason you were censured is you lied under oath. You were on the House Intelligence Committee. You knew that Eric Ciaramella never heard one word of Donald Trump’s phone call to [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, not one word.
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It was—I think I got to get this right ’cause he corrected people. Lt. Col. [Alexander] Vindman, who was on the call, it was a classified, confidential call. He had no business disclosing the contents outside the National Security Council secure room. He did. He called or met with Mr. Ciaramella and said, “I think we have a way to get Trump because I’m interpreting what he said about holding up weapons, holding up weapons deliveries based on the investigation of corruption that pertains to the Biden family.”
And then Mr. Ciaramella says, “OK, I will be the whistleblower to protect you, and both of us will go to Adam Schiff, and we will coordinate how we can get this out in the public.” And then they ask Adam Schiff, “Did you meet with the,” and he said, “No.”
And he cooked the whole thing up. And the irony was that what they charged Donald Trump with in the first impeachment was exactly what Joe Biden did.
The only difference is Donald Trump didn’t say, “Well, I went over there to Ukraine, and I said, ‘You fire the prosecutor for what he’s doing,’” i.e., the prosecutor was looking into Hunter Biden and Burisma. Or, “You know, I’m looking at my watch,” and I’m going to leave here in about an hour, and I’m not going to give you your 4 million, 40 million, 400, whatever it was.
And then he’s bragging to the Council on Foreign Relations, in which this conversation took place. And he goes, son of a blank, and they paid. Ha ha, tough Joe. I shook them down so Hunter got protected, and they wanted their congressional. And what was the impeachment? Donald Trump suspended congressionally approved aid.
That’s exactly what Joe Biden did. Exactly. Only Trump didn’t brag about it. And Trump released it. And Trump was the first president to really give them offensive arms, which neither [Joe] Biden nor [Barack] Obama had approved. So he’s a real scoundrel, Adam Schiff.
Jack Fowler: Any thoughts about Tulsi Gabbard’s performance overall?
Victor Davis Hanson: She came from the—originally from the Tucker [Carlson], Joe Kent wing of MAGA. It was kind of, she was a Democratic, eccentric, and that eccentricity on the Democratic side, a radical libertarian, I suppose you’d call her, dovetailed with the Rand Paul school of MAGA. And she got along with Trump for that reason.
But when she went into the office, she was very good. I can remember last June, last July, she was releasing all the stuff about [James] Clapper and [John] Brennan. Everything we know about what Obama did in the transition, that he brought Clapper and [James] Comey and Brennan in and said to all three of them, “I want some connection and proof for this collusion narrative that we’re gonna spring to.”
This was after the election as well, “that we’re gonna do to basically ruin Trump’s transition and first year.” And they said, “Well, what do you want us to do?” Just ignore what your case officers say and give me what I want. She released all that. She released all that about Kevin Clinesmith and Judge Rosenberg and all of that stuff.
Comey. So she did a very good job. The problem that I think she’s having is she doesn’t believe in optional military engagements in the Middle East, and she was—had a service. And she’s not Tucker or the others who are just screaming and yelling, and she’s not going to do what Joe Kent did, resign and then turn on Trump.
I don’t think she is. She’s got a lot more character than that. And so it—I take her at face value that her husband’s very ill and he needs a caregiver. I’ve been dealing with cancer. I know how you get needy, and you need somebody to help you.
If I go out and try to prune a limb that I could do 100 of them before, all of a sudden I get dizzy. So things like that. And so she needs to get back, and that’s what she’s talking about. At some point there was going to be a collision had she stayed, that being said, because she did not believe in preemptive military engagements in the Middle East.
Jack Fowler: Right.
Victor Davis Hanson: The other thing I’ve mentioned on our podcast before, she’s a very nice person. I went to a—we were the co-speakers, and it was in a little town in Texas, but a very big crowd, and they wanted their money’s worth, and they got it.
They wanted a meet and greet in the afternoon. They wanted pictures. They wanted a VIP reception. They wanted a regular reception. They wanted a dinner. They wanted one spot talk, two talks, and then an after-dinner greet. And book signings, and I was with her on our feet for maybe five hours.
And she never complained one bit. And when people came up at dinner, she sat next to me, we’re talking, and people, “Could you sign this? Could you—” Not one bit. And people say, “Why should she? That’s your job, Victor.” I said, “I know it is my job. That’s her job.”
But you would be surprised the people who think their egos are so big that they snap at people who want an autograph or snap at people who want to talk, and she didn’t. And she was smiling the entire time. So I thought she was very authentic.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.
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