In this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Sami Winc weigh our military actions against Venezuela and the charge the U.S. military “executed” narco-terrorists who were “prisoners.” 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 VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.  SAMI WINC: We’re at war, according to our Secretary of War. And nobody argues with that. So, if we’re at war, I think we learned in Vietnam that the micromanaging of what— VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I don’t think you want to go into Venezuela on ground. WINC: No. HANSON: Because let’s count the ways. You’ve got the MAGA base that does not want optional military engagements. The Rand Pauls, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson. Okay. That’s clear. And then once you’ve staked so many assets, it’s like he’s put a frog in the pot and turned up the temperature. So, they can’t fly in and out of Venezuela, they can’t use ships, can’t go in. It’s basically an embargo. How long can you sustain it, put soldiers at sea in a combat situation? And what if [Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro] just says, “I’m going to wait it out”? So, what’s the next step to ratchet up the pressure? I don’t know what that is. But once you’ve committed these forces, and you put them right off the coast, and you said he has to go, you’ve committed the prestige of the U.S. military. And if you back down, it’s kind of like what Joe Biden did when he said it depends on whether it’s a minor invasion [into Ukraine]. Or [how former Secretary of State] Antony Blinken was dressed down in Anchorage by the Chinese, or the Chinese balloon. Any indication that there are not dire consequences once you’ve made that decision, it’s very hard. So, I’m not sure that I would have put all those assets so quickly right there because now it’s a question of willpower. And if he says, “I can survive without my drug revenues or I can get them from other countries,” then he may be able to survive. We did this once before with [Panamanian dictator Manuel] Noriega. He was a drug smuggler. The other problem is he just pardoned the president of Honduras, who is a conservative, who had been convicted in a U.S. court of drug smuggling, sentenced to 40 years. So, it doesn’t look good to say we can’t tolerate any drug running from Latin American countries, and we’re going to go to war almost, but this guy right north of you has been convicted of drug running and yet you pardoned him. So that’s problematic. He pardoned him because he said that the Biden administration was politically hostile to his politics. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’m just talking about optics. WINC: I was asking the question of didn’t we learn in Vietnam and do you feel like it still stands that micromanaging military affairs on the battlefield does not work very well? That we as a citizen should expect our president that we elected and our military to be given orders and then understanding there are laws … HANSON: I think the order was— WINC: There’s some laws, but in general, the orders were in this case hit the drug boat, sink the drugs or destroy the drugs, and destroy all the drug runners and that’s what the orders were to that regional commander. HANSON: Yes, and that’s what orders always are. And then the question is … let me give you an example. In the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans, under a lot of irregular troops, went in at Malmedy and executed prisoners. And during the Dieppe raid, they executed prisoners. In the Dunkirk evacuation, the Germans executed prisoners. The question is then: Did they get that at Nuremberg? Did they get that command from the general or not? And the U.S. does not execute prisoners. But it’s happened. The people who executed the Americans, the SS, when they were captured in elements of the Battle of Bulge, subsequently, some of them were executed by American soldiers. I don’t know any American soldiers that were held captive. I mean, captive to the law and culpable. So again, it’s a fine line when you hit a military target and the target is still there, so you know that there are people in there that can’t fight back and that are suffering. So, do you hit it again to eliminate the threat or do you consider those people prisoners of war even though you’re not even near them? What I’m getting at is this: They say they were executed prisoners of war. They weren’t in possession of the United States. It would be one thing if they had come up quickly with a PT boat, so to speak, and got them, put them on the boat, and then started going out to high sea and throw them overboard. But they were part of a kinetic operation is what I’m saying. It was still ongoing. It’s all part of a narrative that we saw with the video, this Seditious Six, so to speak. And out of nowhere, Sen. Mark Kelly has decided that he’s going to be a prominent anti-Trump spokesperson. So, he made the video, he was subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, where he called for people to disobey orders if they thought they were illegal. Now he’s weighing in that Pete Hegseth should be impeached. Now he’s weighing in and this has been an avenue for his media exposure. But he has to be careful because no one believes that if the person is not in your possession and he’s still part of a kinetic ongoing battle that he’s a prisoner. You know what I’m saying? My grandfather, I asked him, in World War I, when I was a little boy, I said, “What were you doing?” He said, “I’m a Lewis machine gunner.” He was a Teamster. And they put him in a combat unit. And he was gassed and disabled. But he basically said, “I got sick of shooting young Germans and old Germans as they were running away. We were chasing them.” And they weren’t surrendering, but they obviously couldn’t fight back. They’d given up, and they were running back. The Americans were chasing them with arms and shot them. So, I don’t know what the Left means by prisoners, shooting prisoners or executing prisoners. They weren’t prisoners. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Victor Davis Hanson: ‘They Weren’t Prisoners!’: Venezuela and the Second-Guessing of the Military appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Supreme Court allowed Texas’ redistricting maps to remain in place for the 2026 midterms in a 6-3 unsigned opinion Thursday. The maps could grant the GOP five additional seats in the House of Representatives. Thursday’s ruling comes after a lower court recently tossed out the maps, with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott appealing that decision. The decision was an ideological split, with the six conservative justices ruling in favor of pausing the ruling from a lower court. Three liberal justices dissented. Thursday’s move from the court has key implications for the midterms. At issue for the maps according to the lower court was a concern that the newly redrawn maps posed constitutional issues based on race. As the unsigned opinion of Abbott v. LULAC read in part, “Texas is likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the District Court committed at least two serious errors.” The opinion also mentioned that the lower court “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections.” Texas is not the only state to consider redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms. California voters passed Proposition 50 last month to redraw maps to give Democrats a further edge in the Golden State in an effort spearheaded by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Those maps have also been challenged. Both sides of the political aisle have been pushing for redistricting in recent years, with President Donald Trump and JD Vance urging red states to redraw their maps. Vance has framed the matter about Republicans needing to act after years of “very aggressive Democratic tricks” on redistricting. The 2026 midterms look to be particularly consequential with Republicans narrowly controlling the House and with a slim majority in the Senate, though they do not have enough votes to overcome the filibuster. This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates. The post BREAKING: Supreme Court Rules on Texas Redistricting Maps for 2026 Midterms appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Trump administration could have a tough time making all of former President Joe Biden’s autopen actions “null and void,” which likely means he will face litigation, legal experts warn. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “Any and all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts, signed by Order of the now infamous and unauthorized ‘AUTOPEN,’ within the Administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr., are hereby null, void, and of no further force or effect. Anyone receiving “Pardons,” “Commutations,” or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect.” Clemency may be the only question, since Trump can overturn any Biden executive order whether the president signed it personally or by autopen.  “The autopen is only the instrumentality of fraud,” Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, told The Daily Signal. The Oversight Project began analyzing and investigating Biden’s use of the autopen while he was still in office.  “The president has caught the ball and is pushing as hard as possible,” Howell added. “The Department of Justice is the last missing link to take action. This could be an important step in meeting the promise for more accountability.” The office of Joe Biden did not respond to a request for comment. Here are three keys to know what’s next.  1. ‘Proving That Biden Didn’t Know’ When matters are litigated, the burden will be on the Trump administration to prove Biden was unaware of actions taken in his name, warned Stewart Whitson, director of federal affairs for the Foundation for Government Accountability, a watchdog group.  “The challenge for the Trump administration is going to be proving that Biden didn’t know,” Whitson told The Daily Signal. “That could be proven through eyewitness testimony. It could also be proven through accessing documents, such as emails, that might suggest the president didn’t know.”  A strong starting point for the Justice Department to gain search warrants and compel testimony would be the evidence obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Whitson said.  In October, the committee issued a report titled, “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House,” based on interviews with 14 senior Biden White House staffers.  The investigation found that senior Biden staff exercised presidential authority or facilitated executive actions without direct authorization from President Biden himself, including through misuse of the autopen. The committee found instances where executive actions were executed without clear record of the president’s approval. The committee also identified questions surrounding the issuance of pardons and commutations during the final days of the Biden presidency. This included pardons for Biden family members where the autopen was used without confirmed presidential authorization. Former White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients told the committee he didn’t know who was in charge of the autopen.  “Without sufficient recordkeeping, it is impossible to verify that the autopen was used properly,” the oversight committee report says. “Further, recently uncovered documents and witness testimony indicate that even when a verbal decision was ‘memorialized’ in an email, it does not prove that President Biden had made the decision himself.” 2. Clemency ‘Easiest to Undo’ During his Biden’s four years in office, the White House issued 4,245 acts of clemency. That’s more than the previous record of 3,796 held by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Of those, 96% were granted between Oct. 1, 2024, and Jan. 20, 2025.  These included pardons of five Biden family members, along with pardons for former National Institutes of Health official and former White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, and House members on the Select Subcommittee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. A Biden Justice Department attorney raised concerns about what he called “highly problematic” pardon review process for what the White House characterized as nonviolent offenders.  Biden’s own words during a New York Times interview published in July, reveal that he was aware of “categories” of people with clemency, but not individuals. He did say he was aware of some pardons for Milley and the Jan. 6 committee members. Biden’s comments to the Times should make the clemency “the easiest to undo,” said Howell of the Oversight Project.  “You don’t need to take the Oversight Project’s word for it. Biden told The New York Times after the Oversight Project forced him out of the basement, that he authorized broad categories for pardons, and the staff picked the names. So that was definitely not done by Biden,” Howell explained. It could depend on the definition of categories, said Paul Kamenar, counsel for the National Legal and Policy Center, a watchdog group.  “If Biden told someone ‘pardon everybody on the January 6 Committee,’ that’s a broad category but it’s also finite,” Kamenar told The Daily Signal. “To say, ‘all or most nonviolent drug offenders’ would be more of a problem.” 3. What Will Litigation Look Like? To reverse the pardons, the Justice Department would have to act, and then courts would resolve the question, legal experts said.  “If Biden never authorized it, it’s an invalid pardon anyway,” Kamenar explained. “The way this gets settled is if Adam Schiff or someone pardoned gets arrested, and he comes back to say, ‘I was pardoned.’ The government could then come back and produce evidence that, ‘No, Biden didn’t authorize the pardon.’” Schiff, now a California Democrat senator, was previously a member of the House Jan. 6 committee.  Other clemency issues will be more difficult to litigate if it means reincarceration or returning old penalties, said John Malcolm, director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.  “This is totally unprecedented territory,” Malcolm told The Daily Signal. “Normally pardons and grants of clemency, for example, are not subject to challenge since a president’s pardon power is plenary.” “Here, the issue will be litigated when Trump takes some action that runs contrary to what Biden did–such as seeking to reincarcerate someone who was pardoned or granted clemency or setting an execution date for one of the 37 death row inmates whose sentences Biden commuted–and then we’ll see what a court does,” Malom added.  Trump’s move is a key first step, said Whitson of the Foundation for Government Accountability.  “The bigger threat that President Trump has brought to the public’s attention is the idea of unelected staffers exercising power they don’t have,” Whitson told The Daily Signal. “It could be at the behest of a well-funded organizations or even foreign funding pushing unelected bureaucrats to act.”  The post What’s Next After Trump Voids Biden Autopen Orders? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Robert F. Kennedy’s hand-picked vaccine advisory board unexpectedly delayed its vote on the hepatitis B vaccine’s future in the childhood immunization schedule. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, met Thursday, the first of two days, to hear presentations and vote on the universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for infants. The board voted 6-3 to delay the vote to give advisers time to examine last minute changes to the hepatitis B vote wording. There was a split between some of the attendees who support changing the recommendation and others who don’t. The panel plans to revisit the issue on Friday. Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy has signaled his support for changing the recommendation, claiming that the hepatitis B birth dose is a “likely culprit” of autism in an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast in June. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., an OBGYN, says there is no need to get the hepatitis B vaccine if the mother tests negative for it during pregnancy. Hepatitis B is mostly transmitted through sex or sharing a needle with someone with hepatitis B, and mothers exposed to the disease are likely to pass it to their babies. Marshall told The Daily Signal in an exclusive interview that removing the hepatitis B vaccine from the schedule would help restore the patient-doctor relationship and give families more choice in their children’s healthcare. “If you as a mother said, I want my baby to have the vaccine, I’m definitely OK giving it,” he said, “but I really want to put that decision back into the hands of mom and dad, and not in the hands of a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., that’s never delivered a baby, never taken care of a newborn.” The removal of the vaccine from the schedule means insurance companies may no longer be required to cover it. But Marshall said ACIP shouldn’t make its decision based on what an insurance company is going to do “I certainly have the empathy, but I think regardless, the health departments are going to carry it and they’re going to give free vaccines to everybody, regardless of what the insurance company does. And a lot of people go to health department anyway, the county health department,” he said. Marshall said he worries that offering the hepatitus B shot on day one of the baby’s life unnecessarily interferes with its immune system. “There is more we don’t know about immune systems than we do,” he said. “I’m just afraid giving a baby a vaccine this early interferes with its own immune system.” Marshall proposed letting the baby’s immune system develop before giving the hepatitus B vaccine. “Now, if that mom is a prostitute, if she has multiple sexual partners, if she’s doing IV drugs, if she’s got a positive drug test, if we don’t have a hepatitis B screen on her, then sure, I would probably get that baby the vaccine,” he said. “So there’s a way the [Centers for Disease Control] could recommend it without being on day number one.” To Marshall, ACIP’s biggest challenge will be determining the right age to give the hepatitus B vaccine to babies with minimal impact. “I’m concerned about the impurities that we that are getting these vaccines, all the nonessential substances… And just the quality of where it’s made even bothers me,” he said. “They should probably be American made vaccines, until proven otherwise. And then it’s the interaction when you start giving multiple vaccines at the same time, it’s really hard to figure out, is that impacting the baby, the child’s immune system as well.” After the vote, ACIP will make its recommendation to the CDC, which will ultimately decides the future of the childhood immunization schedule. “I think that’s the research we should be focused on, is trying to sort out the best timing of it,” Marshall continued. “By the first year of life, I think a baby’s going to receive 20, 25 jabs, and it just seems like it’s too many to me. My gut feeling as a doctor is, we try really hard not to mix medicines.” Similarly, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has said on X that there is “no medical reason to give newborns” the hepatitus B vaccine if the mother “is not infected.” President Donald Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio found that 80% of voters say it’s important to people to receive the hepatitus B vaccine. That includes 70% of Trump voters. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, has said he is “very concerned” about the possibility of changing the hepatitis B vaccine schedule. “This is policy by people who don’t understand the epidemiology of hepatitis B, or who have grown comfortable with the fact that we’ve been so successful with our recommendation that now the incidence of hepatitis B is so low, they feel like we can rest on our laurels,” he told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.”  Since 1991, ACIP has recommended that all babies receive the vaccine.  On Friday, ACIP will vote on if the government should drop its birth dose recommendation for hep B vaccination for babies whose mother tested negative. The guidance would remain for babies whose mother is positive or whose infection status is unknown. The earlier version of the guidance said parents of children whose mother’s infection status is unknown should make the decision in consultation with a doctor. The post Robert F. Kennedy’s Immunization Board Delays Decision on Future of Hep B Vaccine appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Democrat Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has called out former Vice President Kamala Harris over her campaign memoir’s characterization of him, which he says are “blatant lies.” In Harris’ book titled “107 Days,” which recounts her failed presidential campaign, the former vice president explained why Shapiro was snubbed as her running mate. She alleged that Shapiro was focused on the features of the vice-presidential residence during the vetting process and seeking too much power for the office. She claimed he wanted “to be in the room for every decision” she made. “That’s complete and utter bulls–t. I can tell you that her accounts are just blatant lies,” the governor said in response to passages read aloud to him from Harris’ book, according to a recent interview by The Atlantic’s journalist Tim Alberta.  “I mean, she’s trying to sell books and cover her a–,” Shapiro told The Atlantic of Harris. “I shouldn’t say ‘cover her a–.’ I think that’s not appropriate. She’s trying to sell books. Period.” Shapiro, who was a leading candidate to become Harris’ vice-presidential running mate before the selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, campaigned on Harris’ behalf in the Keystone State in 2024. In the interview, Shapiro also attempted to explain the shortcomings which led to his party losing ground in recent years. “Democrats lost ground in some of these communities by failing to show up and failing to treat people with a level of respect that they deserve,” Shapiro said. “Donald Trump has been a once-in-a-generation political figure who’s managed to connect on a deeper cultural level.” Harris’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The post ‘BLATANT LIES’: Josh Shapiro Slams Kamala Harris’ Book appeared first on The Daily Signal.