Why Are Tucker, Megyn Attacking Trump’s ‘Jacksonian Preemptive Deterrent’ Attack Against Iran?

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” with Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes. 

JACK FOWLER: Well, you were talking about not being pottymouth, so we’re gonna talk about some pottymouth people here, Victor.  

This is Donald Trump, well, there’s some podcasters infamous for being pottymouth. So here’s a headline: “Trump goes off on nut jobs Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones over Iran war criticism.” 

I think this is from the New York Post. “President Trump lashed out at four Right-wing critics of the Iran war.” This was Thursday, two days ago, from when we’re talking, describing them as nut jobs and losers who will say anything for attention.  

“’I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the number one state-sponsored terror, to have a nuclear weapon, because they have one thing in common: low IQs.’”  

He’s writing this on Truth Social: “’They’re stupid people. They know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it too.’ The president raged.” 

I know it. 

“’Look at the past, look at the record. They don’t have what it takes, and they never did.’” Mamma mia … 

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I don’t know about Alex, I don’t know Alex Jones. I’ve only met Candace Owens once, but I’ve been on Tucker’s show quite a lot and I’ve been on Megyn’s show quite a lot. They’re not low-IQ people. 

But what I don’t understand about them is this, and I like them both personally. I don’t know what precipitated this. I see Tucker had a little earlier turnabout, because on the bombing last summer, he said it was gonna cause World War III.  

But we learned afterward that he’s been calling Trump various times. He was back on good terms.  

So when this other strike hit, they got very, very angry. And Megyn gave a long excursus that she was sick. She had expletive—man, that I watched that clip. It was “f” this and “sh” this, but she was very angry at Trump’s existential threat to civilization.  

But I think, because they’re intelligent people, and Tucker said it was, what, satanic or something on Easter to do that. 

No one of their caliber would believe that Trump was going to wipe out the entire civilization of Iran. And we know that is true because he said help was on the way to the Iranian people.  

And as I said with Sami, if you go back, all of our wars, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, the Serbian misadventure, the Libyan fiasco, we hit dual-use targets. We took out civilian ships, port facilities in Libya. We bombed the grid into zero blackouts in Belgrade. One and a half [million] people, no electricity.  

We destroyed every bridge on the Danube. First Gulf War, Saddam didn’t have any infrastructure. TV, radio, power, fuel, you name it, we wiped it out. 

So Trump never has done that. He’s taken out one bridge, and the reason he hasn’t done that, last time he went, he bombed for 24 hours, is he thinks he wants a dividend of this campaign to end and be a revolt of the people. He said that.  

So when he said their civilization is going to end, it was a sloppy use of nouns. What he meant was this radical Shia Islamic regime culture, civilization is gonna be ended. The civilization that has been imposed on the Persian people. That’s what he meant. He should have said that. 

FOWLER: Yeah. 

HANSON: But what he does shows you what he means. Megyn and Tucker would’ve had a good case if this prior four weeks he had been hitting power plants, he’d been hitting schools, he’d been hitting water plants, he’d been hitting solar, all of that. And then he said, “I’m gonna just take it out.”  

But he hadn’t. He didn’t want to because he’s on the side of the Iranian people. The 93 million people, that he feels are enslaved by this corrupt, theocratic, interloping civilization, that was a hiatus and interruption in Persian history. 

OK. So I don’t understand that. So that means to me that they weren’t angry about the MAGA, but Trump never said he wasn’t going to use force. I was on Megyn’s show shortly after the summer bombing, and she thought that was great, and she was correct. It was, to nullify, at that point, what we thought were all of its nuclear potential.  

And then when you look at what he’s done, [Qasem] Soleimani, [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi, bombed ISIS, took out Wagner Group, got rid of [Nicolas] Maduro, bombed last summer and bombed … they all have one thing in common. This is longer.  

And what’s the thing in common? Except for Maduro, there’s no boots on the ground. There’s no door-to-door fighting in Fallujah, on the enemy’s terms. There’s no Helmand Province going into villages and never know who’s gonna shoot you, friend or foe or green on green or whatever we wanna call it. Soldiers in the Afghan army shooting us. 

There’s none of that. It’s an air campaign. And yes, it is now getting close to 40 days, if not beyond. But that’s not a war. That’s not 20 years in Afghanistan. That’s not eight in Iraq. That’s not even 72 days in Serbia.  

It’s about what the first Gulf War, I think, was, 42. So they know it’s not a forever or endless war. 

It’s a Jacksonian preemptive deterrent act so that these nuclear— they don’t have nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at the West.  

And as we said before, they’re not sending billions of dollars to these ring of fire or Arab terrorist proxies, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Hamas. And they’re not killing Americans as they’ve done for 47 years. 

FOWLER: Right. 

HANSON: And they’re not trying to assassinate presidents and secretaries of states. So it was long overdue.  

But what I’m getting at, finally, is, they know that.  

So then my next question to them is what’s the alternative? Now we’re having midterms and we’re gonna have a presidential election. So you’re not going to vote for this man because he used force in a way that contradicts, in your belief, the bans on forever wars. 

So you are going to turn over, by your absence or your lack of advocacy, you are going to see the Democrats win to punish Trump? To punish MAGA? 

So all the things that you fought for, Tucker, Megyn, Alex Jones, I guess, even Candace, closed border, we’ve deported over a half million people, in just a year and a half, and another million and a half have self-deported. Crime is at an all-time low. He’s rebuilding the military.  

We’re the greatest producer of gas and oil in history. He’s the first president that’s brave enough to take on DEI, and he’s doing a great job. He’s the first person to take on the insanity in higher education. 

So what I’m getting at is he’s done 85% of what they want. That’s Megyn’s agenda. That’s Tucker’s agenda. That’s Candace’s agenda. But on this one topic, it’s so egregious, apparently, it not only nullifies all of that other, but from what I understand, they’re gone now. They’re off. They’re done. 

And what’s gonna happen is you’re going to get a Kamala-type candidate or her, and the alternative is DEI in-your-face. Revenge DEI. Revenge open borders. Revenge illegal immigration. Revenge DEI in the military. Revenge an Afghan skedaddle. Two-theater wars. Da da da da da da. I don’t get it. 

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