Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal.   I think we should take another look at the Iranian War, and I would call it a longer view, not the short-term 24-hour news cycle.   What’s happening right now is the media and the left wing of the United States political spectrum, the Democratic Party, and they are a nexus now, a Borg. They react in 24-hour cycles. So anything that looks unfortunate, from the point of the American success in Iran, they cling to.   So last Monday, it looked like Donald Trump, after his tweet on Easter that he was going to end the civilization of Iran, and I mentioned before he meant the regime, the theocracy, the civilization of radical Shiite jihadism in Iran, they wanted to impeach him. They said he was a “warmonger,” a Hitlerian figure.  The next day he announced that negotiations would take place, and then he was a TACO, a Neville Chamberlain, a George McGovern, a Jimmy Carter, “Trump Always Chickens Out,” but it’s indicative that they don’t look at the war empirically, they look at it entirely in political terms.  In fact, people as diverse as Tom Friedman or Bill Kristol, if you collate what they have written, they almost feel that anything that happens negatively in Iran might be positive because it would hurt Donald Trump, and then therefore that would be in the long-term interest.   Forgetting that we have 100,000 soldiers in the theater risking their lives, and they’re risking their lives to eliminate the real opportunity, the real likelihood, that Iran could get nuclear-tipped missiles very quickly, not just aimed at Western Europe, but in two or three years, perhaps the United States as well, given the participation of North Korea, China, and Russia in their arms industry and their agenda.   So we have to look at the long version, and the only way we can do that is look at history, and history says it’s very unusual that one side has been so victorious in an asymmetric war, especially against the strongest power in the Middle East by all accounts, 93 million people, a huge territory. And people were terrified of it, not just the Gulf monarchies, but the Europeans.  We say the Strait was open before the war. Yeah, it was open, but it was open on the condition that Iran would close it at any minute or could make things difficult. Prior to this closing, it had closed it in 1979 and 1980, and again in 2019 and had threatened to do it on many occasions. It’s not going to be able to do that when this war ends.   So if you look at it realistically, very quickly, they don’t have a military, so to speak. They have lost probably hundreds of billions, if not half a trillion dollars, in a half-century investment in missiles and now in drones, sophisticated aircraft and submarines and capital ships.   Their command and control is down to the second- and third-tier, and no one knows who’s in power. We don’t know if it’s the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We don’t know if it’s the political class. We don’t know if it’s the theocracy. We don’t know if it’s the army.   But we know two things: that they are each afraid of each other. They don’t want to seem as if they’re too compliant, so they want to be as hard-line as possible, but we don’t know what that really represents. All of these communiques that are so lunatic may be just intended for internal consumption.   And the other fear they have, any one of them, is looking at these four different groups and says, if they cut a deal with the West or the United States in particular, and there’s a transitional figure and the people take over, we’re all going to be dead for what we’ve done.   And so, it’s a very fluid situation politically, but militarily it’s clear that this has been an overwhelmingly devastating war for Iran. And who were the winners and losers of it? Take Russia. Russia has no presence in Venezuela now. It has no presence in Latin America. It has no presence in the Middle East. Its Assad regime is gone.   It had a drone back-and-forth relationship with Iran. Maybe it’s supplying some weaponry across the Caspian Sea we don’t know about, but for all practical purposes that’s been severed.   It’s bogged down in a war with Ukraine. It’s lost over 1.5 million people. It enjoys a little spike in oil prices, and that may help it, but it would be much more likely that they would want now to get out of the Ukrainian war, have some kind of deal, armistice, and then have sanctions lifted off them because they feel that the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t have a good future.  Which turns us to the Gulf itself. The Strait of Hormuz has 20%, not 80%, 20% of the world’s oil going through it every day. The Saudis are going to expand their Red Sea pipeline. The Emiratis are going to expand their pipelines that serve other countries that are oil producers in the Gulf of Aden. They’re talking about going across the desert through Jordan to Haifa, and you could envision in four or five years the Gulf might only serve Iran.   Instead of being an asset, it could be a liability. If anybody wanted to close it, it would’ve hurt Iraq and Iran more than anybody else.   I mean, Iran has other ports, but it would be an inert asset. And so holding onto the strait and threatening the world means that people are going to find alternative oil supplies and they’re already doing it with the U.S. and Venezuela.  And if Russia is smart, it will try to find a ceasefire and join in this alternate supply that’s non-Gulf.   China has been hurt because it got 80% of all Iranian oil, and that’ll be contingent on the United States. It’s already contingent whether they get Venezuelan oil, on the United States. It won’t be sold to them at a discount.  They look at the war and what do they say? What do they see? They see that drones—submarine drones, surface craft drones, aircraft drones—and now the United States has broadcast to the world they’re going to acquire what, a half million, a million of them. They’re late to the party, but when we get riled up and we get activated, we can outproduce almost anybody.  And the idea that they were going to go across 110 nautical miles into Taiwan after what they’ve seen in Iran would be very foolhardy. The United States fleet could sit on the other side of Taiwan, arm Taiwan to the teeth, which they’re doing now, and it would be very hard for hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese shipping to come across that strait without being under constant fire from a sea of ballistic missiles and drones.  Europe is a big loser. We didn’t ask all that much of them. We just said supply us by letting us use your bases and your airspace. That was very modest … they wouldn’t do that. The Spanish closed their embassy in Israel, and they kept it open in Iran. For all practical purposes, Spain is a belligerent.  France wouldn’t let us use its air power. They won’t even go into Lebanon, their special post-colonial friend and responsibility, and help get rid of Hezbollah.   Britain said they were going to protect their interests in Cyprus. They have a base that was targeted. They can’t even send one destroyer there.  Turkey is a NATO member. And what has Turkey been doing? It’s been really siding with Iran, and it’s threatened to invade and attack Israel, a NATO partner.   Italy, we thought was a close conservative friend. They wouldn’t let bombers land in Sicily. The U.K. has been the most disappointing.  Maybe it’ll try to help. It doesn’t have many resources anymore. It’s sad to say, given the history of the Royal Navy. But my gosh, if we had said to Margaret Thatcher when she asked our aid in 1982 to help the Falklands, we could have just quoted what Starmer would later say, “this is not our war.  It’s not our war.” It’s not our war in Serbia. It’s not our war in Libya. It’s not our war in Chad.   So you can see the problem with NATO in name only, and it will be a bilateral alliance. I think more and more the United States will pick and choose which NATO members it will fully work with because the rest are either neutral or hostile to the United States.  And finally, the United States. If this war ends in two or three weeks, it’ll still be seven months for the economy to recover, and oil will start flowing out of the Gulf.   And more importantly, Venezuelan oil, American oil and even perhaps Russian oil will get on the market to capture these high prices and people will avoid the Gulf as much as they can, and the Gulf will be opened one way or the other.  And so there’s a good chance the economy can return and there’s a better chance people will come to the realization after this 24-hour hysteria and media cycle and left-wing fanaticism is over, when they look at the situation empirically, they’re going to say, my gosh, Iran is not threatening the Middle East.  My gosh, they don’t have a ballistic missile threat. They do not have an immediate avenue to get nuclear weapons. They have no military. Their entire command and control has been wiped out. Their population is furious. It’s stewing.   This could be like the fall of the Berlin Wall, which not the next day, not the next week, not the next month, but within months, or in the case of the Soviet Union, within two years, you could see a regime change.  So the United States is in a good position, especially because we chose not to fight on the conditions that we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we’re fighting house to house in Taji or Fallujah or we don’t know who’s friend, who’s the enemy in a village in Afghanistan. Now this was fought on Western American terms, and the asymmetry shows it.  So we don’t know what the ultimate prognosis of this war is, but if we take the long view, it’s far more favorable to our interests than it is to our enemies.   We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Iran Crumbles, Critics Scramble: Trump’s Long Game Leaves the Media Exposed appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The GOP is keeping tax policy in the headlines with a successful Tax Day, as Americans can expect an average $3,000 refund. Members are now looking ahead to how they can continue to be the party of “working Americans.” During a press call about President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) — now commonly referred to as the Working Families Tax Cuts Act by Republican members — House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told The Daily Signal that the GOP will never waiver from the understanding that “the individual is the person best positioned to make decisions about their own lives and what to do with their own money.” “Democrats had the opportunity,” Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., chimed in, referencing the last administration. “Costs went up for seniors and taxes went up for seniors. In fact, we saw so many times, time and again, that the investments that were promised for these working families and all throughout our community never came to fruition,” Mackenzie said. Emmer celebrated Mackenzie for being one of the champions behind the increased and permanent child tax credit included in the OBBB. “It is Republicans that have delivered on these promises that we made on the campaign trail, and people are seeing and feeling more of this money back in their pockets this tax season,” Mackenzie concluded. Real Wage Growth and Bigger Refunds: GOP Touts ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ on Tax Dayhttps://t.co/3ievYa5iR2— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) April 15, 2026 Major OBBB Provisions Not Getting Headlines At a separate event, the Republican Study Committee highlighted the tax wins. Members noted key provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill that are bolstering the economy but may not be getting the headlines. ? LIVE NOW: RSC Hosts Tax Day Roundtable With Hardworking Americans Who Are Reaping the Benefits of the Historic Working Families Tax Cuts ?? https://t.co/NQ6HRgFeXW— Republican Study Committee (@RepublicanStudy) April 15, 2026 Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., noted that because of the savings in the OBBB tax cuts, $50 billion was able to go to support rural health care. Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., reminded the room that because of the savings, money was able to be put toward remodeling the country’s air traffic control system, protecting our skies and our homeland. And, because of all of the overall savings stimulating the economy, real wages are up. “Wages have now outpaced inflation,” Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, said. Looking Forward Van Duyne announced that the party is “anxiously and currently working on” the next tax bill, hoping they will have an opportunity to deliver to “make it an even better bill.” Edwards noted that when something is successful, it’s important to go back and evaluate how it’s working. Real Americans shared their ideas with lawmakers on possibilities to add to the next legislation. Will McLoughlin, a veteran and a small business owner, praised that the no tax on overtime has been “life-changing” for some of his employees, but he suggested adding a provision to protect “bonuses below a certain threshold of income” from being taxed. He explained that it is heart-wrenching to reward an employee for working hard just for some of that bonus to go to bureaucrats. ?? THIS is the America First agenda IN ACTION! Will McLoughlin served as a U.S. Marine, then built Ameri-CANS from the ground up with a simple mission: hire veterans and give back to Gold Star families.When he expanded into Texas, the Working Families Tax Cuts results spoke… pic.twitter.com/rJRODOcDYz— Republican Study Committee (@RepublicanStudy) April 15, 2026 Another small business owner proposed a provision to benefit seniors and small business owners. When you retire and have to sell your company, you lose a large amount of cash from capital gains taxes, but he proposed that the capital gains taxes instead go to a retirement account. Real Americans Getting Relief Dennis Ferrigno, owner of Executive Beverage in Virginia Beach, Virginia, said that the OBBB was the “greatest bill to hit the floor in ages,” noting the benefits he and his employees have reaped from no tax on tips. “God bless America, God bless the president, and God bless the legislators that got this done … Hampton Roads thanks you,” Ferrigno praised. ? HUGE: Hardworking Americans are seeing bigger tax refunds than EVER before, and it's no accident. Thanks to Republicans and President Trump, the Working Families Tax Cuts mean no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, and more money in the pockets of every worker, parent, and… pic.twitter.com/lZHNDRs3bt— Republican Study Committee (@RepublicanStudy) April 15, 2026 Alex Butterworth is an attorney for Uber Eats and an investor in Butterworths, the notable “MAGA bar” in the capital. He explained that as an H-1B visa worker, his investment venture was because America is “a country I want to contribute to.” Lindsey Fifield is a stay-at-home mom. She shared with lawmakers and the press that because of the tax benefits and Trump Accounts from OBBB, she has “security” to stay at home with her children to homeschool them. The post GOP Looks to Expand Tax Relief, ‘Even Better’ Than One Big Beautiful Bill appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Parents prioritize civic literacy, colorblindness, and transparency in education rather than focusing on preconceived notions of the oppressive and oppressed, according to a new national survey. The survey commissioned by the THINC Foundation, delivered shots directly across the bow of critical race theory. The vast majority, 85%, of parents believe individual attributes such as effort, character, and perseverance have more influence on life outcomes than immutable traits like skin color and ethnicity. More than nine in ten parents said it is important for children to be taught mutual respect and cooperation, including engaging with differing viewpoints, and 90% said it is important to teach civics. Nearly as many parents, 89%, said school curricula should be publicly available so they know what their children are being taught. The survey, released April 14, polled 2,246 parents of K-12 students. “Parents want schools to focus on the fundamentals that bring Americans together: civic literacy, respect for different viewpoints, and the conviction that every child can succeed,” said THINC Foundation Founder and CEO Mitch Siegler in a statement accompanying the release of the findings. “The overwhelming consensus reflected in this survey should remind policymakers and educators that families expect classrooms to be places of learning, not arenas for divisive partisanship.” Curricula commonly associated with critical race theory, including programs such as Liberated Ethnic Studies, have drawn criticism from some parent groups and organizations. Many argue that these programs place an increased emphasis on race and identity in divisive ways. Siegler questioned why schools have prioritized these ethnic studies programs when parents are asking for the opposite. In the survey, 82% of parents believe schools should teach the value of a colorblind society in which individuals are judged by character rather than race or ethnicity. “If this is how people feel, why are we doing the opposite in so many school districts?” he asked. “Why doesn’t common sense prevail, and districts give parents what they want in a constructive, unifying way?” THINC Seeks an Alternative to Divisive Ethnic Studies The THINC Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes transparency and civic-minded education in K-12 schools, aims to address these concerns about ideology in the American education system. “We originally launched the THINC Foundation in 2024 to bring greater awareness to the issue of ideology in American schools and to advocate for a more constructive, unifying approach that brings students of different backgrounds and ethnicities together,” Siegler told The Daily Signal. In recent years, THINC has developed its own curriculum, which Siegler said focuses on “bringing people together, emphasizing critical thinking and debate, and teaching students about different backgrounds.” THINC, along with some other organizations, argues that ethnic studies can be appropriate if taught in a different format. Siegler said that teaching about different cultures and backgrounds can be valuable when presented appropriately. “This material may be more suitable for older students,” he said, adding that concepts such as “oppressor and oppressed” should not be introduced in early elementary grades. Should Ethnic Studies Be Replaced With Civics and History Courses? Other groups take a more critical view. Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy argued that ethnic studies programs should be replaced with civics and history courses. In their article, “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Ethnic Studies Has Got to Go,” the authors pose that civic education should emphasize shared national principles and individual rights. They contend that ethnic studies curricula focus heavily on group identity. “The content emphasizes the differences between different identity groups, making their status as Americans subordinate to their immutable characteristics. As a result, students are taught that the characteristics that they cannot control—such as skin color and biological sex—help to determine their destiny more than their choices and decisions,” the authors stated. The role of ethnic studies in American education remains a subject of debate. Some argue the subject can be adapted for older students, while others believe it should be removed entirely. Regardless, according to THINC, the new survey reveals a “broad consensus around core educational principles, including mutual understanding, critical thinking, and reasoned debate—a strong rejection of those who see education as an inherently political pipeline to activism.” The post Parents Want Civic Literacy and Colorblindness in Classrooms, Not Critical Race Theory appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A book by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar promoting her immigration legislation simply recycles old ideas and relies on some center-left sources, a conservative watchdog group says. The Florida Republican member’s book, “Dignity Not Citizenship: The Truth About Immigration No One Is Telling You,” is an argument for her bill called the DIGNIDAD Act, short for Dignity for Immigrants while Guarding our Nation to Ignite and Deliver the American Dream Act. The bill—which mixes tough immigration enforcement with granting some legal status to illegal aliens—has 20 Republican and 20 Democrat cosponsors. However, the sources used to back up Salazar’s case in the book are not conservative, according to an analysis of the text by the Oversight Project, a watchdog group. Her book, released last November, calls out the Biden administration’s open-borders policy but also says Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids aren’t working. She opposes mass deportation, arguing it is costly and bad for the economy. The Oversight Project analysis contends that Salazar’s book used some passages that didn’t give adequate attribution to sources such as the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Niskanen Center, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative organization that monitors nonprofits, didn’t categorize the Peterson Institute as on the right or left, but it described the Niskanen Center as a libertarian environmental think tank and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy as left of center. The Oversight Project analysis found that other sources for Salazar’s book were fully attributed. Yet those were not conservative sources. One example is the Brookings Institution, which has employed members of past Democrat and Republican administrations, though many Brookings donors have been left of center, according to the Capital Research Center. Other sources for her book include the Bipartisan Policy Center, which CRC describes as a center-left think tank, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is not associated with the right or left. Another source is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is clearly conservative on numerous moral and cultural issues but has been critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. These organizations were cited with proper attribution, according to the Oversight Project analysis. The analysis found a “high” concern level for only passing attribution to research by Michael Clemens of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that focuses on global trade, finance, and labor. It also found the Salazar book mentions “Michael Clemens, writing for the Peterson Institute,” but the prose in Salazar’s book, such as “incomes dropped, land values collapsed,” was similar to wording from Clemens. Her book “mirrors the structure and content” of the Peterson article, according to the Oversight Project analysis. Salazar argues in the book that deportations were unsuccessful during the eras of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the presidencies of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, and under President Calvin Coolidge—information detailed by Clemens, the Oversight Project argues. “It looks like Salazar is not thinking for herself. She certainly isn’t writing for herself,” Oversight Project President Mike Howell told The Daily Signal. Howell said it wasn’t plagiarism but called it “sloppy regurgitation” of points made by the Washington establishment that has promoted amnesty for illegal aliens. “These are old, tired ideas that the swamp has pushed for decades,” Howell said. “This lacks dignity. It would be more dignified if she would think of her own arguments.” The Daily Signal emailed spokespersons for Salazar on Monday and Tuesday and left voicemails in both the Washington, D.C., office and the main district office in Miami. The Daily Signal also contacted Skyhorse Publishing, which owns Regnery Publishing, the publisher of the book, for comment by email and phone on Tuesday. Other examples were labeled in the analysis as moderate or low with regard to attribution. The analysis asserted Salazar “underattributed” tax data from a 2024 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. A book passage from Chapter 5 says, “In 2022 alone, undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $96 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. That breaks down to roughly $15 billion in sales and excise taxes, $10 billion in property taxes, and $7 billion in personal income and business taxes.” The Oversight Project says these specific breakdown figures come directly from the institute’s analysis, but the book doesn’t cite the institute study that gained news coverage when it was released. It further says the book has “close paraphrasing” of a Niskanen Center article in Chapter 1 that describes labor shortages. The specific sequence of examples—such as pharmacies, shipping hubs, and delivery—was close to the sequence in the Niskanen report, the Oversight Project says. However, its analysis says the “Niskanen Center is named once in passing” but contends this was a “lightly reworded version of the original article’s argument structure.” The post Watchdog: Salazar’s Immigration Book Relies on Nonconservative, Center-Left Sources appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Texas Democrat James Talarico has amassed a huge war chest in his bid to flip a Lone Star State’s Senate seat in November. Talarico, a member of the state House who beat U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for his party’s nomination in March, raised $27 million in the first three months of 2026, his campaign announced on Wednesday. The Democrat’s haul makes him one of the biggest fundraisers in the history of Senate campaigns. Jaime Harrison, also a Democrat, holds the Senate fundraising record for a quarter, having raised $57 million in one quarter of his unsuccessful 2020 bid to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. ? $27 million raised this quarter ? $40 million raised this cycle? 540,000 individual contributors? 246 Texas counties? Zero dollars from corporate PACs pic.twitter.com/LLB5UdzLH6— JT Ennis (@jt_ennis) April 15, 2026 Harrison’s record beat that of Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who raised $38.1 million in one quarter during his unsuccessful 2018 race against Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Texas Republican primary voters have yet to make a final decision on their candidate to run against Talarico, as incumbent Sen. John Cornyn is advancing to a runoff against his challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. President Donald Trump has not endorsed in the Republican primary. “James is proud to be the only candidate in this race not taking a dime of corporate PAC money, shattering grassroots fundraising records with donations from 246 Texas counties and the help of over 500,000 small dollar contributors — unlike John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, who have raked in millions of dollars from special interests and fought to enrich their billionaire donors while working Texans struggle,” JT Ennis, a Talarico spokesman, told The Daily Signal in a statement. “Our people-powered campaign is going to change this broken political system by defeating corrupt politicians like John Cornyn and Ken Paxton this November,” Ennis added. Cornyn’s campaign said a statement Wednesday that he raised $9 million dollars in the first quarter of 2026 — a number referring to the over $7.2 million given to his authorized fundraising committee and $1.7 million to the campaign itself. In a statement to The Daily Signal, Cornyn campaign senior advisor Matt Mackowiak argued Talarico’s numbers are inflated by out-of-state money. “James Talarico is raising massive amounts of money through Act Blue and major donors in New York and California,” said Mackowiak. Talarico’s campaign said in their announcement that many of the “grassroots fundraising” donations came form “working Texans,” mentioning that “97% of contributions to the campaign were $100 or less.” Mackowiak also argued Cornyn’s numbers position him well in the Republican primary. “To date, Senator Cornyn has raised over $20 million for the race, more than four times what Ken Paxton has raised,” said Mackowiak. “Democrats nominated their strongest candidate for U.S. Senate, and Republicans must nominate John Cornyn, their strongest candidate for U.S. Senate to ensure Texas stays red and we maximize the chances to win the five new Congressional seats.” The Paxton campaign’s report, which must be filed Wednesday, has yet to be published. Paxton’s and Talarico’s campaigns did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The post Texas Dem Senate Candidate Posts Massive Fundraising Numbers appeared first on The Daily Signal.