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, you mentioned the war, Victor. So, the Straits of Hormuz are—the Iranians say they’re in control. This is from two days ago, where, clearly, [President] Donald Trump’s saying we are now in control. Anyway, what’s your take on the latest headlines, Victor?  Victor Davis Hanson: Nothing that the Iranians say can be taken at face value because there is no Iranian government. The first and second echelon of that apparatus is gone. So, you have the people in the military, that’s one clique. You’ve got the theocracy, the Khamenei, you know, surrogates. That’s another. You’ve got the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It’s probably the most dominant. Then you’ve got these elected politicians. And they have two driving concerns.  One, they are terrified that one of the other three groups will think they’re weak and are negotiating with the Americans and either kill them or marginalize them or cut off their revenues, such as it is. So, they always want to outdo each other. At the same time, they want to outdo each other by saying, you know, we’re winning and all this crazy stuff.  They are also afraid of an uprising. Because if there’s an uprising, any of their hardline stuff that protects them from each other is gonna put a noose around their neck, in a Nuremberg-like trial, given they’ve killed 30,000 to 40,000 people.   So, you got the schizophrenia that on one day they want to be moderate and signal the Iranian people that maybe we might transition someday, with me as a figure. On the other day, it’s hardliner, or please don’t kill me if you’re in the Guard Corps. So, it’s almost impossible.  The other thing that’s going on is they did a—and everybody says, well, why didn’t he blockade Iran and open the strait? He had a sequence that makes sense. He destroyed their air, capital, navy, air defenses, most of their military, industrial, nuclear complex. And then he said, let’s talk. And he had negotiations. And now he started a blockade that reportedly is costing them $430 million a day in revenue. Now this is on top of losing probably a 50-year investment of a half a trillion dollars in a missile arsenal, barracks, military apparatus, vehicles, planes, drones, nuclear factories—you name it. It’s wiped out.  I just make a little footnote of that, Jack, because Ben Rhodes and the Obama people are all on TV saying, oh, Trump—people don’t understand, he’s just reinstituting the Obama joint plan—you know, the comprehensive plan, joint plan action.  Fowler: Are we sending pallets of cash over?  Hanson: Yeah, exactly. We’re not. It’s nothing the same. Obama was rearming an ascendant Iran that was scary and indomitable, so people thought. We are dealing with a prostrate, weakened, and feeble corpse of Iran. And we’re dictating. We’re not negotiating, we’re dictating to it.   So, if these negotiations break down and Iran thinks it’s going to send some missiles into Saudi Arabia or storm a tanker, Donald Trump will take out their bridges, the first day, probably. He will take out their power plants.  And what is Iran thinking? Well, Iran is thinking that we’re going to go into the traditional rug—I don’t think that’s an ethnic stereotype. I’ve been in the Middle East. I bought a rug in Turkey once and one in Greece, and it’s—you barter. But that’s what they think.  They’re gonna go to the bazaar and barter, and yesterday, today, and tomorrow, whatever they say doesn’t matter, and draw out the negotiations, hoping that the Left will win the midterms.   The midterms will be lost, Trump will be impeached, and the Republican congresspeople will put pressure on him, and before the midterms, to get out. The Europeans will put pressure, Japan, everybody—they think time is on their side, and he will fold, and then they can reconstruct, and they probably feel they have some fissionable material they can fish out.  OK. Time is not on their side, not when you’re losing $400 million-plus a day. All he has to do is not give in for the next five to six, 10 days, and he still has plenty of time during the midterms. Just don’t put the boot off their neck. Make sure they suffer $400 million, $450 million in lost revenue, and that’ll mean finally these people who are living lavishly and sending their children and their friends all over Europe, the United States, money—it’ll cut off. And then they will negotiate.  And if you want to accelerate a little bit, if they start to do crazy things, then yeah, take out their bridges or something. And if anybody complains from the Left and says that you’re going to impeach them, just remind everybody that Bill Clinton took out every bridge on the Danube in 1999 when he bombed, and he also bombed all the electrical facilities in Belgrade, so don’t fall for that hysteria.  So, I think we’re in a pretty good place. I think a lot of people are getting nervous that it’s going on too long, but he’s got another week or two to put—he’s right on the verge. If he can hold out against all this European and domestic pressure and Asian pressure and the Gulf pressure. The Gulf pressure is either cut a deal with them or destroy them, but don’t leave them.  Fowler: How do you cut a deal with liars, though, Victor?  Hanson: You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. You have to dictate. It’s like talking to the Japanese after World War II. We learned that they bombed Pearl Harbor while they were telling us that they wanted to have peace, and they were working right in the middle of negotiations with Cordell Hull. Right. That fleet was already on its way to Pearl Harbor when the negotiations started. So, they knew that.  And so, when we saw them on Sept. 2 in Tokyo Bay, [Gen. Douglas] MacArthur handed them a list of demands on unconditional surrender: free use of your country by the United States military, United States military will be the occupying power and the military government to reform. And they looked around and they thought, we do not want another atomic bomb. We didn’t have another atomic bomb for months, but they didn’t know that. We don’t want Curtis LeMay bombing us back to the Stone Age again. They agreed.  Same thing with Hitler. They thought as soon as [Adolf] Hitler killed himself, all these people came out of the woodwork. [Karl] Dönitz, [Hermann] Göring, they—you know, even Himmler—oh, we’re the government, deal with us, will you not? No, no, no. You were defeated, and here’s what’s going to happen. You’re gonna be occupied, you’re gonna be zones of occupation, you’re gonna have no military, nothing. And this time you’re not gonna cheat like you did after World War I. And that’s what they did.  They don’t have any cards to play. They have none. The only card they have is the dream house of the Democratic media nexus that thinks this is a disaster.  And by the way, not to get off topic, did you see Tim Walz, Jack, in Spain?  Fowler: No. What? What happened?  Hanson: He went over to Spain to this international socialist conference at a time—  Fowler: To a socialist conference?  Hanson: Yes, in Madrid.  Fowler: What?  Hanson: Yeah. And he goes over there, and he’s one of the keynotes. Now he’s being hosted by this anti-American government that’s utterly corrupt and stolen money and is very unpopular and knows the next election it has, it’ll be thrown out. But it has just denied the United States, at a time of war, the use of its airspace and its joint NATO base, in large part paid for by the United States.   And he gets up in front of this foreign audience at a time when Americans are risking their lives in their Gulf, and he says that this is a fascistic agenda enterprise. This is fascism. What we’re doing is fascism.  In other words, you go into a foreign country and you basically say to the soldiers out risking their lives, you’re engaged in a fascist enterprise, and I’m gonna trash you to your enemies, which are our enemies—the socialist government of Spain as an enemy. I’ve never seen anything quite like that. I never have.  Fowler: Maybe he was trained well when he was in China, Communist China. How many times did he go there?  Hanson: Seventeen. You know what’s funny about all these—have you noticed all of these left-wing icons, they all had these flaws that they covered up.  Now we knew that guy was a pathological liar. He had gone to China, and they rebooted him as working man, that changed his own oil   Fowler: Coach. Coach Tim.  Hanson: And now he’s just a complete—and they did the same thing with Jussie Smollett. They said he was this, this, this. They did the same, and he was—you know, everybody knew that guy was a faker unless you believe the laws of chemistry don’t apply when you throw bleach out at minus 40 degrees and it doesn’t freeze. And you can kickbox holding your sandwich in one hand and your cellphone in the other against two huge attackers in your definitive—   Fowler: Bustle. Yeah.  Hanson: Yeah, yeah. You believe all that. And Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris and Joe Biden did believe that. And then there was Jeffrey Epstein, who was kind—well, you know, Jeffrey’s got some girl. He’s kind of a—he always wants to be an intellectual. He wants an office at Harvard. And then there was [Eric] Swalwell. Well, you know, he is a little randy. He has this little tendency to get a little drunk and get a little handsy, but he’s our guy. And they do that with all of them.  George Floyd? Well, yeah. George Floyd put a gun to a woman’s stomach. He had a home invasion. He was four years in prison. He was a career felon. When he was arrested, he was high on fentanyl. He was resisting arrest. He was passing counterfeit currency, and you know—but he was a martyr, and he has angel wings on. He’s the same.   That’s what they do. They take all of these people and they manufacture them into something they never were, and it ends up just the opposite. I mean, they end up as just—they implode, and then they go to the next one.  Another one is that lawyer for Stormy Daniels.  Fowler: Oh, yeah.  Hanson: Michael Avenatti.  Fowler: Yeah.  Hanson: That guy was a complete crook. And remember, he was on CNN, and they said he is so handsome, he’s dynamic.  Fowler: He was gonna run for president.  Hanson: Yes. He was gonna run for president. Then he stole Stormy—  Fowler: Yeah.  Hanson: By the way, another one was Stormy Daniels. Well, she had to put out in this—she had to go into this sordid career because she was a working mom, all this stuff.  Fowler: Oh yeah.  Hanson: And then she never paid the fine. The court ordered her to pay Trump for violation of the nondisclosure—I think it was the attorney fees, $400,000, and she never paid. But they had a picture of it the other day. It was very sad. Did you see her on the internet?  FOWLER: I did, yeah.  Hanson: She kind of covered with tattoos and obese, smoking a cigarette.  Fowler: Yeah. A lot of city miles on that lady.  Hanson: Where are all her leftist champions? Why doesn’t any of them that had her on TV every night call her up and say, Stormy, I’m really sad that you’re destitute. Here’s $10,000?  Fowler: Yeah.  Hanson: They’ll never do that. She was a useful idiot. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Trump Isn’t Negotiating—He’s Crushing Iran’s Regime appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday regarding removal proceedings against an immigrant legally in the United States charged with counterfeiting. The case has the potential to affect the operations of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and immigration courts, said Art Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. “If the Supreme Court affirms the 2nd Circuit, it will make it much more difficult for ICE and border agents to determine that a green card holder with a criminal offense coming back into the United States is inadmissible,” Arthur, a former immigration judge, told The Daily Signal. “This could potentially impact the capacity to keep terrorists out of the U.S.” The case itself has an interesting backstory, as the plaintiff, Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese national, was charged with counterfeiting before leaving the country but was convicted after returning and being placed on parole. The case is Blanche v. Lau, renamed for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche after initially being Bondi v. Lau for former Attorney General Pam Bondi. There are two key questions in the case, Arthur said. “First, will immigration officers or immigration judges make a determination if a person is inadmissible?” Arthur said. “Second, the court will decide whether a parole decision is reviewable by the courts.” Lau, a lawful permanent resident in the United States, was charged in May 2012 on New Jersey state charges for selling almost $300,000 worth of knockoff Coogi shorts, according to SCOTUSblog. Before his trial, he left the country but returned June 12, when immigration officers at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York stopped him. The Immigration and Nationality Act says that green card holders who leave the country and re-enter are generally not regarded as seeking admission into the United States. However, an exception exists for “a crime involving moral turpitude,” which would include fraud or theft. Immigration officers determined that Lau was subject to the “moral turpitude” exception and paroled him. That allowed him to stay temporarily to face prosecution but deferred his eligibility for admission. A year later, he pleaded guilty to trademark counterfeiting and was sentenced to two years’ probation. In March 2014—during the Obama administration—the Department of Homeland Security began removal proceedings against Lau on the ground that he wasn’t eligible for admission. Lau challenged the immigration officials’ decision to parole him rather than admit him into the country in June 2012. He contended he was improperly classified. After an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals sided with the government, Lau appealed his case to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. In March 2025, the 2nd Circuit sided with Lau, ruling he had been improperly classified by immigration officials at the New York airport and ordering the immigration court to terminate the removal proceedings. This should be an easy case for the high court, said Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.  “It is common for airport inspectors to parole you in deferring inspections. Think about the lines at airports,” Ries, a former lawyer with the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, told the Daily Signal. “In this case, he had to have his counterfeit case resolved. He pleaded guilty, so he was convicted. And then, they pursued removal proceedings based on that.”  Riess said the 2nd Circuit shouldn’t have reviewed the case. “Parole is discretionary, and there’s clear statutory language that says something discretionary for the [attorney general] or the Homeland Security Secretary is not subject to judicial review. So, a court, in this case, it was the 2nd circuit, shouldn’t even be reviewing parole,” she said. In March, a coalition of immigration advocacy groups filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of Lau. The brief argued, in part, that allowing the government to rely on charges or suspicion to commence removal proceedings would place millions of green card holders in jeopardy. The government’s position would “hollow out the meaning of permanent residency,” said Razeen Zaman, immigrant rights director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, in a public statement about the amicus brief. “For Asian immigrants and immigrants across all communities, the freedom to travel abroad and return home is not optional—it is the basic dignity that permanent residency is supposed to protect. That should not be a gamble,” Zaman said. “No one should have their green card taken at the airport, be placed in detention, and face the threat of deportation because of an unproven allegation.” The post SCOTUS to Hear Immigration Case on Green Card Holders Charged With Crimes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Virginians voted in favor of Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Democrats’ effort to completely overhaul the commonwealth’s congressional map to favor Democrats, the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening. The Associated Press called the race in favor of “yes” at 8:50pm eastern time with an estimated 81% of the votes counted. At the time of the call, 50.3% voted in favor of the redistricting effort, while 49.7% voted against. The AP called “yes” despite the slim margin because the outstanding ballots were in areas breaking hard for “yes.” While 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans currently represent Virginia in Washington, the new Virginia congressional map will likely give Democrats a 10-1 advantage after the midterms. Democrats will hold this massive advantage despite the fact that Virginia went blue by less than 6% in the 2024 presidential election and voted for Spanberger by 15 points in the 2025 gubernatorial election. The new congressional map is expected to result in 10 Democrats and one Republican by stretching congressional districts in Northern Virginia and areas of Charlottesville deep into southern and eastern portions of the state that are rural and reliably red. Even prior to Tuesday night’s election result, voters in Virginia expressed concern with the language on the ballot. The Virginia Supreme Court decided to wait until after the election to hear the case over whether the language was fair. Notably, this is the same court that decided the current map was a fair one to begin with. A recent poll conducted by Heritage Action found that nearly 50% of voters were confused by the term “restore fairness.” VIRGINIA: Language like “restore fairness” is leading language and is there to intentionally mislead voters. The truth is our 6-5 map is fair and an accurate representation of our purple state.If this amendment passes Virginians will lose their representation in Washington. pic.twitter.com/jXtx4gYMOm— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) April 21, 2026 “It’s misleading,” Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., told The Daily Signal. “That’s why I’m a plaintiff in a lawsuit to challenge the wording of the ballot.” “We’re optimistic that even the blindest of advocates for justice can see that this wording of this question is unconstitutional,” Cline added. VIRGINIA SCOOP: @Heritage_Action is out with a new poll that shows 70% of Virginia Democrats oppose gerrymandering redistricting efforts happening now!“It’s very possible that this can be defeated.” @StefaniBuhajla told @DailySignal pic.twitter.com/RnTJu2a8Bg— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) March 25, 2026 Now that the map has passed, the Virginia Supreme Court is expected to take cases challenging the map. The Virginia redistricting effort is a blow to Republicans seeking to hold their slim House majority. The most recent majority is 217-213, as of Tuesday, when Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., resigned. Unsurprisingly, Democrats across the country poured resources into the state, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who poured at least $70 million into the race from his super PAC, the House Majority PAC. Nevertheless, Florida could decide to redistrict in the coming weeks to claw back the potential losses in Virginia. ? IT'S OFFICIAL: Now, FLORIDA has a chance to redistrict exactly 1 week from tonight after Virginia approved their ridiculous 10D-1R map for CongressThe special session convenes in 7 days.Rise to the occasion, Florida Reps and Senators!Send a map to Gov. Ron DeSantis that… https://t.co/PU4GNQRFRm pic.twitter.com/pKTHydPHzN— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 22, 2026 The post Virginia Democrats’ Redistricting Gamble Succeeds in Special Election appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has raised money for decades claiming to dismantle white supremacy, but it funneled millions of dollars to white nationalist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, according to a federal indictment handed down Tuesday. The SPLC claims it was funding informants inside the extremist groups. While the SPLC “purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press conference that “the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose.” Blanche highlighted one example from the indictment, where the SPLC paid a member of the leadership group that planned the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. ?READ ITToday, @DAGToddBlanche & @FBIDirectorKash announced an 11-count indictment against the SPLC.While SPLC raises money by claiming to oppose white supremacy, the indictment accuses the SPLC of paying the Ku Klux Klan?https://t.co/Fl8GtFga9A?1/12 pic.twitter.com/b567v12DAD— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 21, 2026 “The Southern Poverty Law Center themselves advertise to raise money to dismantle violent extremist groups … however, the SPLC used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups,” FBI Director Kash Patel explained at the press conference. The indictment charges the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, aiming to “obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for.” It charges the SPLC with four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank by creating accounts for fictitious entities to funnel the money. Finally, it charges the SPLC with one count of conspiracy to commit concealment of money laundering. The Justice Department’s indictment claims that the SPLC directed more than $1 million to an affiliate of the National Alliance; more than $300,000 to an affiliate of the Aryan Nations; more than $270,000 to a member of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017; more than $140,000 to the former chairman of the National Alliance; more than $73,000 to former Ku Klux Klan members; and more than $19,000 to the president of American Front. ?INDICTEDHere's @DAGToddBlanche laying out the payments SPLC allegedly made to white supremacist groups pic.twitter.com/qSm85M774N— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 21, 2026 Blanche said the federal investigation began years ago, and the Biden administration shut it down. The Daily Signal previously reported that members of the Biden administration worked closely with the SPLC. Patel said the FBI’s “investigation revealed that funds were used to facilitate the commission of further state and federal offenses, totaling over $3 million.” He said the SPLC allegedly engaged in a “widespread, decade-long multimillion-dollar fraud” and proceeded to “hide their criminal activity from our financial banking network.” A reporter noted that the FBI had previously worked with the SPLC, and asked whether the SPLC revealed to law enforcement that it was funding these entities. Patel said he did not find it surprising that the SPLC “never told anybody that they were paying off the Ku Klux Klan.” Bryan Fair, interim president and CEO of the SPLC, revealed the federal investigation Tuesday morning, and admitted that the SPLC had paid informants in white nationalist groups. Fair added that the use of paid informants was “necessary” because of threats the SPLC faced. Fair noted that in 1983, members of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan firebombed the SPLC’s offices, and he claimed staff have faced “countless credible threats” since. “For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups,” he said. “In light of that work, we sought to protect the safety of our staff and the public. We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI. We did not, however, share our use of informants broadly with anyone, to protect the identity and safety of the informants and their families.” The SPLC built its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy. Now, the group publishes a “hate map” including mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. The SPLC did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. This is a breaking news story and may be updated. The post The SPLC Was Paying the Ku Klux Klan, DOJ Indictment Claims appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL — Miguel Granda, a longtime Republican staffer and “Christian conservative whose ideas are rooted in his Christians values,” told The Daily Signal he has filed his candidacy for Florida House District 117 on Tuesday. Granda, 34, told The Daily Signal that his experience as a legislative aide to Florida Rep. David Borrero has given him a “first?hand understanding of the challenges facing Miami?Dade and the legislative process needed to address them.” “Floridians can trust me because I’ve already been doing the work,” Granda said. Since 2020, Granda has worked for the Trump?endorsed conservative lawmaker as Borrero advanced a slate of conservative priorities. Granda also serves as president of the Miami?Dade Young Republicans. In his interview with The Daily Signal, Granda added that he plans to bring “real?world, legislative, and legal experience that this district needs.” During Granda’s tenure in Borrero’s office, the lawmaker introduced legislation requiring public schools to teach students about the dangers of communism. The measure was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis and later approved by the Florida State Board of Education. More recently, Borrero told The Daily Signal in March that he is considering introducing a resolution condemning the Democratic Socialists of America and seeking to strip the group of its tax?exempt status after members planned a trip to Cuba and expressed support for the communist regime. “I promise the community one thing: No one will work harder for them than me,” Granda said. Granda described his decision to run for office as a major milestone in a life he said was transformed by “God’s grace and purpose.” “My story is proof that a person’s worst chapter is not their final one,” he said. Granda said he hopes to carry that message throughout his campaign and, if elected, while in office. “I want every young person in South Florida who has made mistakes, every family that is struggling, and every community that has been written off to see themselves in this campaign and know that there is a future waiting for them,” Granda said. “With God’s grace, I will bring that same relentless determination to every family, every business, and every neighbor in District 117.” The post EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Florida Insider Looks to Flip Democrat Seat in Florida House appeared first on The Daily Signal.