‘He tore out the scab’: Trump exposes Europe’s wounds on defence, energy, borders

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Hello, I'm Gabriella Power. Welcome to Power Hour. President Donald Trump says that Benjamin Netanyahu will do whatever I want him to do. Now, this comes following reports that the US president had a tense phone call with Netanyahu earlier this week over potential strikes on Iran. Here is the president, >> Prime Minister Netanyahu about Iran and how long to to hold off on strikes.

[00:00:22]>> It's fine. He'll do whatever I want him to do. He's very very good man.

[00:00:27]uh he'll do whatever I want him to do and he's a he's a great guy to me. He's a great guy.

[00:00:34]>> Joining us now is Victor Davis Hansen, senior fellow at Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so grateful to have you here. Can we start with those uh comments from Donald Trump? What should we make of them?

[00:00:48]>> Well, I think it depends on where you put your emphasis. He said that he'll do what I want to do, but he also said he's a good guy. He's a great guy.

[00:00:57]>> So I think he's reacting to a lot of um pressure here upon him from the left who has advanced this mimmer or narrative that he is um under the command of Netanyahu somewhat and he that Israel is controlling the most powerful country in the world which is is ridiculous. So he's trying to react to that and try to say you know he'll do what I want to do not what he wants to do to clarify that.

[00:01:21]And then he wanted to make sure that people didn't make a lot of it by saying, "But he's a good guy and he's a great guy and they're partners."

[00:01:28]>> And there is an intrinsic difference because we're 6,000 miles away and we've got the biggest military in the world and we have strategic interest of our own and Israel's approximate right next to Iran. It's 11 million people, 10 and a half million people. So obviously they're more sensitive to policy shifts or hiatuses than we are because it's an existential question with them when it's kind of not so much with us yet.

[00:01:56]>> Yes. No. And it's not just the left u making those ridiculous suggestions that um Trump is is kind of um pandering to Netanyahu. It's also the horseshoe right where we've been hearing that kind of absurd criticis criticism. Um, I'd like to get your thoughts on where the US is really at in this war. We're of course entering the sixth week of a of a two-week ceasefire. What's your assessment of where the United States is at with this war? Of course, Donald Trump is under pressure as you mentioned. There's some risks of kind of exiting now.

[00:02:28]>> Yeah, I think we're getting to a the point of uh no return. He has to make a decision rather quickly. I think people realize now that the so-called negotiations, the non-kinetic aspect of the war is almost as long now as the actual war was. It's it's been 40 days or so since. And the feeling here is that they did 90% of what they wanted by attracting the military, but strategically that hasn't resulted in the two chief aims, the end of their nuclear potential and the opening of the straits and the negating of their missile force. So I think sometime in the next four or five days he's going to either force them through negotiations and if it's not suitable if they will not agree that they'll go back and they will spend four or five days and try to eliminate the threat and that would be seal Pike Mountain or any areas that are subterranean that may have the nuclear material. Clean out the corridor across from the straight. hit some dual use targets and I the feeling I think in the United States is that the rest hasn't been completely negative because they have learned a much um much more about the strategic um status of is of Iran's assets and they know much more than they did when the war started. So they're confident. I think a lot of people in the United States are at the point where now they said you can't negotiate.

[00:03:55]They're not serious. just go ahead and um limit their potential to cause havoc or make war for the next 10 or so years and go home. That's a lot of the that's the feeling I think that's starting to transcend left and right here that people agree with that.

[00:04:12]>> What do you say to the criticism directed at Donald Trump that um you know they're against this war and they're angry at Donald Trump because he campaigned on on no wars and now there's this conflict. What what do you say to that argument?

[00:04:26]Well, he campaigned on no forever wars.

[00:04:28]That's the point of contention. So, is this a forever war or an endless war as people naturally reference Afghanistan or Iraq? And the question is, it was about 40 days of war making.

[00:04:42]There were no US troops. 13 people were lost. That was about the same tragically, but about the same we lost in the Biden uh departure from hasty departure from Afghanistan.

[00:04:53]and it was one of the most asymmetrical wars that we've seen. Does this So then the point of contention is does this classify as a forever or endless war in the Middle East? I don't think it does.

[00:05:05]But what makes it different is uh Donald Trump chose to do this before the midterm elections and uh at a time when gasoline and was about $2 a gallon at a historic low and the economy was starting to look well and everybody was getting very confident. And then he did this and that caused a lot of apostates on the right to bolt and then that gave energy to the left going into the midterms. And now the question is can he neuter the Iranian war machine and then pivot uh back to the United States and look at the essentials of the economy that are pretty good and address inflation. Get the uh price of gasoline down either by opening he has to open the straits but there's a lot of oil [snorts] as you know circulating in the world that's not being purchased. it's on tankers or it's in storage and there's a feeling that he still has time to get the price of gas down but it the window is closing and I think the Iranians knew that all along and that was their strategy.

[00:06:01]>> The window is closing and the clock is ticking. We're heading closer and closer towards the midterms. How is this looking right now? Do you think Donald Trump um will be able to achieve what he wants to being able to kind of focus on the economy between now and November?

[00:06:17]It's >> a it's a close call. The problem is for him that historically in the last 100 years there's only been three occasions where the in party did not lose seats in the house and the problem is he has a very narrow margin of depending on who shows up can be as small as two or three seats. So all of the conventional wisdom has always been he's going to lose the house as Obama did and he did the first term as Biden did. But the the the wrinkle is that the Democrats are not pivoting where everybody thought they were toward the middle. They're doubling down. We had a congresswoman in Texas say that she wanted to use ICE detention facil facilities to put Zionist in there and said some other nasty things. We've got a ma a candidate um in Maine who had a toteen cough tattoo from the you know the sixth um the sixth division of the third reich and also used in the death camps. And then we've got Mandami who is now deliberately targeting people going to Ken Griffith's house and tapping on all of that's not not good for a midterm election that isolates and and polarizes people. Then there's the other thing is the redistricting.

[00:07:31]Uh it's a war now, but the Republicans have more state legislators. So even Democratic uh pollsters, they believe that if this goes full blast, which it seems to be, that dem the Democrats may lose about eight or nine seats and then there's a racial geromanding that's going to end according to the Supreme Court ruling that might add another four. So it's just a question. If you look at the map, there's only about 50 seats out of the 400 plus 30 that are in play and they're leaning left or right about 50/50. So, we don't know.

[00:08:05]>> There's only about really 15 or 20 seats that are actually in contention. So, that's a much it's much better for the Republicans, but the odds are still against them.

[00:08:14]>> I want to ask you about your article.

[00:08:16]Well, you've recently written a fascinating piece titled America: The Real Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where you argue that the US is once again being widely underestimated by elites and uh decline narratives in the West. You suggest that America still retains enormous economic, military, and strategic advantages over its rivals, particularly China. Can you talk to us about this? Just explain it to us. And you know, do you think the west is kind of convinced itself that American decline is inevitable?

[00:08:47]>> Declineism is a characteristic of the west. It has been for 2500 years. In free society, self-critical society, it's often very common. But if you look historically the essentials of a society, it's always success or failure is does it have constitutional stability and continuity? We do, China does not.

[00:09:06]Is it self-sufficient in energy and fuels? We are the largest producer of gas and oil in the history of civilization. China imports 10 million barrels of oil a day. Uh is it self-sufficient and sued? We're the largest food exporter in the world.

[00:09:21]China was uh very self-sufficient but now it's importing 30% of its food.

[00:09:27]Fertility West is in decline in that category, but we're 1.7 which is pretty good for a western country. China's 1.0.

[00:09:35]It's it's shrink it's shrinking and it's aging at the same time. We have 11 carrier groups. We've been doing carrier operations for a hundred years. China's been doing it for 15. They have three.

[00:09:47]Strategically, we have 6 to 7,000 nuclear weapons. They have about 600.

[00:09:52]They're they're trying to close that gap. Um, if you look at AI, I think the United States has regained the lead. If you look at space exploration, Elon Musk launched more satellites than most of the world combined, not to mentions NASA. So in space, all the indicators are actually pretty positive. You look at GDP, >> we were told that the Chinese now, we were told 10 years ago they would pass us. We're roughly about $30 trillion in annual GDP. China is 20. We have a population of 340 million. They're 1.4 billion. So in a rough math, it takes about four Chinese residents to produce 60% of the GDP that one American produces. So it's pretty positive.

[00:10:37]They're they're making gains. And it's I think people forget that the astonishing advance that they've made from almost a peasant society 50 years ago is not the same as parody with the United States.

[00:10:49]>> And I think we we've we've always done this in the United States. In the 30s we were told fascism was going to overwhelm us and we Charles Lindberg said you can't compete with the lufwafu. We won that war with our allies. We were told after the war the Soviets were just unconquerable. They had conquered all of Eastern Europe. Communism was spreading through Africa, Asia, China. We were doomed. The Cold War didn't bear that out. Then we were told Japan incorporated was they bought Pebble Beach. They bought Rockefeller Center.

[00:11:20]They, you know, Colombia Pictures, they were the new model, state capitalism.

[00:11:25]And then at the millennium, we were said, you know what, the EU, the e, the euro is takes $1.6 for the euro. They've got $450 million people. They're united.

[00:11:35]They're going to overtake. None of that happened. And now the same thing is true of China. It's the next big fear, but it's not materializing the way that people had said it was. You've also argued that Europe now faces shrinking populations, energy insecurity, and growing migration pressures while still relying heavily on the US for security.

[00:11:55]Do you think the Trump era has exposed that America's allies ultimately need Washington far more than Washington needs them?

[00:12:04]>> I think so. I think it was a kind of a a wound that was there and Tom Trump didn't cause it. He tore off the scab and exposed it. And the truth is that their fertility is about 1.3. They were essentially unarmed. They're trying to make that up now.

[00:12:21]And then um their energy, they sort of committed energy suicide, especially in Germany, by dismantling fossil fuel plants and nuclear plants. Their borders were open. They have 16% of their population in some countries are Islamic that hasn't been acculturated or integrated or assimilated. And people had warned them that they, you know, Trump gave a lecture to them, you should have no business buying natural gas from Russia in the Nordstream pipeline before the war. They laughed at that. And um I think when this thing broke out, we didn't want to, I guess, supposedly lose the surprise by consulting with some allies that may have been less reliable about keeping it private. But they had a choice. all that all that Spain and France and Britain [clears throat] and Italy and other countries had to do was just say, you know what, we don't want to get involved in this, but here's the dual use NATO bases. It's going to be in the common interest of the West that this country does not get uh nuclear weapons given its 50-year history of terrorism and global disruption. So, please take it out. But we have domestic constituencies that we can't openly voice support. But we're going to work just the way you did with the Fal Faullands, just the way you did with the French and Chad, just as you joined the coalition of the willing in Serbia. You helped us uh in Libya. None of those were really in this interest of the United States to the degree that they were to approximate Europe. And they didn't reciprocate. They kind of demagogued it. So it made a great deal of anger in the United States. And I think the result will be there'll be a tilt or pivot to our Asian allies, our Eastern European NATO members, and an end to uh the British or the French unilateralists when they get the next time they go on a unilateral expeditionary mission. I don't think the United States is going to get involved behind the scenes with logistics, fuel, reconnaissance as we did in Libya, Serbia, the Faullands, and Chad. JD Vance has ripped into European media.

[00:14:27]>> And here here's one thing I'll say about about this. Look, I I have for my entire life, I'm 41 years old. For my entire life, I have heard chirping from the European media about everything that's wrong with the United States of America.

[00:14:41]We don't have this, we don't have that.

[00:14:43]We don't spend enough on health care, even though part of the reason why we spend so much on defense was because we have tens of thousands of troops in Europe. I think that if the European media wants to attack the president of the United States, they need to start looking in the mirror. All he has said is that we're going to be good allies.

[00:15:00]We're going to be good friends. We're going to be trading partners, but it is reasonable for Europe to take a little bit more ownership over its continental integrity.

[00:15:10]>> Victor, um, what do you make of JD Vance? Do you think it's a fair point?

[00:15:15]>> Yeah, I do. I mean they should ask themsel we again we have 340 million people and the EU and non-EU NATO members combined have 450 million and they have 60% of our GDP. They have no military which is their choice. They have they have all these existential problems that I talked about. So economically and militarily their power is not commiserate with their potential. They're the cradle of western civilization. Have a huge educated population, but they've gone down a neoist, you know, disarmament, pacifistic open borders policy, a green new deal that we we struggled with and it's not working and they're doubling down. And then they have this attitude that they're the Greek philosophers that are above the fray and every once in a while they call these crude Roman legionaires to come in and do things.

[00:16:09]And I I don't think that's going to continue.

[00:16:12]I want to ask you about K Star Dama, but just seeing as we played that uh JD Vance clip, I want to ask you one more question about JD Vance. What do you uh what do you make of his performance so far as vice president? What do you think his chances are for 2028? When you looking at him or or even Marco Rubio?

[00:16:27]>> Well, he's way ahead in the polls and from the outset, Marco Rubio has said that um he was not interested and he would support JD Vans. And your question is germaine though because um on matters of foreign affairs that everybody thought would take second fiddle to domestic affairs where JD Vance was very prominent. He's the head of the anti-corruption task force looking at the fraud in all these state etc etc. But because of the Venezuelan uh incursion and the first bombing in June of last year of Iran and the current war and then all of the things that happened during the first term, Trump has has accentuated foreign policy and he's secretary of state and he comes from a different part of the Republican party.

[00:17:12]So he's getting a lot more he's getting a lot more attention. He's very >> he's very uh eloquent. He does very well at press conferences. He's not as confrontational as JD Vance. And the thinking I think that prompted your question is that Trump is a confrontational person. He that's his style. And Vance accentuated or emphasized that. And Rubio sort of the fireman that smooths that over and that's why he's gotten a lot of attention. But it hasn't shown yet in the polls. He's creeping up, but he's still marketkedly behind. Uh JD Van says the first preference of Republican voters, at least in polls. Yeah, it' be fascinating to see if those polls change, which I'm sure they will in some way uh between now and 2028. Yes. Um Karma, he's under a lot of pressure at the moment as senior Labour figures openly positioned for succession after electoral backlash and of course migration issues. Um what are your thoughts on Karmama and uh could you give us kind of a rating I suppose? How has his performance been and how much longer does he have left?

[00:18:18]Uh it's just not it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when he leaves. He doesn't have the support of the majority of the British people, the Labor Party and the Conservative Party. Reform is ahead of both both of them. I think their combined total in many of these so-called British version of midterm elections wasn't quite what reform was.

[00:18:39]So he's he's opened the borders and he and then he's a weak leader because I mean as I emphasized later he could have just been very quiet but he he waffled on Diego Garcia. He said this is not our war. And when he says that and we had this close relationship with Britain he said this is not our war. That would be like Ronald Reagan saying to Margaret Thatcher the Falcons is not our war.

[00:19:04]This is our hemisphere. We don't want to alienate Western Hemisphere Americans and our Spanish-speaking constituency, but that's exactly what we did. We got heavily involved to ensure that Britain won that war. And that was a long time ago. But we don't know what he's doing or why he's doing things. I don't think he does. It's a long way from Margaret Thatcher or even earlier British prime ministers.

[00:19:28]>> He's the weakest we've seen, I think, here in the United States. And I think he's the weakest the British people feel as well.

[00:19:34]>> Absolutely. I mean, you can see a lot of anger just pouring out of Britain. You saw the tens of thousands of people take to the streets over the weekend. I want to ask you about the relationship between the US and Australia. The man Trump picked to serve as America's ambassador in CRA, David Brad, has been urged to help Australia tackle rising anti-semitism and uh counter Chinese influence in the Indoacific and of course advance the Orcus partnership at his nomination hearing. Um, could I get your thoughts on those issues and also Australia's relationship with America?

[00:20:08]>> Well, Australia's relationship is a little different than other countries because when you ask Americans which country do they feel closest to, it's now Australia. It has been for about 10 years. So there's enormous public support for Australia and the indep and the image of the independent defiant Australian that that really resonates with the Americans frontier experience etc. So there's such goodwill there. And then they have common concerns about China and China's bullying of its neighbors. And Australia is a very vulnerable country because it's a continental size uh nation with enormous natural resources but comparative small population. So it's heavily dependent on the goodwill of its allies, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and and the United States. And we had this long history in World War II. Almost every American has a good feeling about Australia. My father was on a B29 flying over Tokyo.

[00:21:10]>> Wow.

[00:21:10]>> 40 missions. And he when he they flew into Australia for rest and relaxation on their bomber.

[00:21:17]>> That's all he talked about on this for about how wonderful the Australians were >> and how of all the allies they felt the most comfortable. And that story is it's it's just part of the American tradition that they feel Americans feel that Australians have the closest experience to our own. M >> and uh and also we're a populist and they feel that especially here in the west that our your relation to Britain is sort of our relation to the east coast the rest of the country that that was the establishment >> and the people who were the frontier people were a little bit different and that's so they we have a lot in common especially in the west. We we [snorts] certainly do. But with when it comes to defense spending, Australia recently committed an additional $53 billion in defense spending over the next decade though and aims to reach 3% of GDP by 2033. Critics of course argue that this is just um inadequate really and particularly for the strategic environment that we find ourselves in.

[00:22:18]What are the consequences of this if that um that we're potentially not doing enough here when it comes to our defense spending?

[00:22:25]Well, I think I mean we were spending three not long ago. We're going up to four. So, we we're hardly in a position to criticize Australia. But I think it's very important that Australia get to three% or 3 and a half%. I don't want to be too partisan, but the current Democratic Party is not the party of Harry Truman or Bill Clinton. It's way to the left.

[00:22:50]And part of the component of its foreign policy is that it it's not it's not as resident. It's not as receptive to traditional allies. And they they view certain countries that are not they feel there they call the term they use are settler colonials. They can say that about Israel. They can say that about Australia. And there it's kind of an anti-western DEI um in that party. And unless it changes or adopts it, I I think it means that for Australia, they can't necessarily count on this the the same level of of support. And in the case of the Trump administration, part of their anger at NATO um is that they feel that the Pacific allies, South Korea and Taiwan and Japan and Australia, even though they have diverse governments and they have strong left-wing constituencies that they understand, they live in the real world and they know the dangers in their neighborhood and they're trying to to combat pacifism and appeasement. and reestablish deterrence and the United States attitude is those who help themselves are going to be helped by us for better or for worse. I think that's the attitude of the Trump administration.

[00:24:05]>> Um, we're almost out of time. I've just got two more questions for you since you mentioned the Democrats there. Um, of course I asked you about JD Vance and Marco Rubio. Are there any Democrats that are looking good or do you think they are so they have gone so far to the left? Um, is there any chance they're going to return to the center?

[00:24:23][laughter] Is there any hope?

[00:24:24]>> Uh, one John Federman, but he's an is he's a man on an island. Uh, when you do it systematically and you say, is Gavin Newsome going to say I'm going to do for Cal the United States what I did for California as a resident? I don't think he's going to run on that. Uh, Camela Harris was a dismal candidate and kind of imploded in 2024 when she spent a billion dollars more than Trump. Pete Buddajjig is not very exciting person.

[00:24:51]So I can't think of some of the squad are charismatic AOC but you know she's not ready for much more than a house seat. So there everybody's talking about that. That's why I think that's a good question because people in the Democratic party they don't see a Barack Obama. They don't see a Bill Clinton.

[00:25:08]>> They don't see any of those leaders that were pretty strong Democrats and had success.

[00:25:13]>> Yeah. Absolutely. Look, your new book, The Counterrevolution, The Fallen Rise of Donald Trump, I believe is coming out in August. I'm really looking forward to it. Can you talk to us about the book and what you learned as you were writing it?

[00:25:25]>> Yeah, I the first part is the fall and I I I had forgotten how unpopular and the obituaries and epitaps that were given in early 2020, especially after January 6th. I don't think in the history of the United States, we've never ever raided a next president's home to find files, which Joe Biden had as well and other presidents have. We've never tried to take a president off the ballot. We have never impeached a president twice. We've never tried a president as a private citizen as he happened to Trump. We've uh never taken an an ex-president and had five criminal and civil suits against him. Four of which, it's funny, I discovered in the book that on November 18, all in one day, Fanny Willis's legal representative, Mr. Wade, was in the White House. On that same day, Biden appointed Jack Smith. On the same day, Letita James was in the White House for her New York business. The same day, Michael Coangelo, third man in the DOJ, stepped down to go to work for Alvin Bragg. And what was so essential about November 18th, uh, 2022, 3 days earlier, Donald Trump announced he was going to run and shocked everybody. And so, you can see the effort to destroy him. And then he was kind of an existential.

[00:26:46]Anything that didn't kill him made him stronger. So that I tried to explain how he came back, why he came back, and what his uh first year and a half have been like, and what's the prognosis for him.

[00:27:00]And I I kind of suggest he's a tragic hero. He has certain skill sets that we haven't seen in other presidents. But when we were we were paralyzed on the border, we were paralyzed on illegal immigration. we were paralyzed in certain issues [clears throat] with NATO and he came in as sort of the proverbial outsider in a western movie and he's starting to solve them and the more that he solved them people then turned their attention they had um a level of complacency and they said I don't like the way he tweets he's too crude and so I I don't think he's going to be treated when he leaves office as most presence but I think he'll do a lot of good but it's it's kind of the the fate of all the way back to Sophocles is that tragic heroes are people with flaws, but they they get things done and they solve problems and then people who invited them in then disinvite them and say you're there was a time and a place for you and we're done with you be gone. And that's sort of sad, but I think that Trump is sort of in that situation.

[00:27:59]>> Yeah, I I agree with you. Even now, his second year into his second term, we've seen a lot of criticism at him, even the way he handles himself on on Truth Social. What would you make of how he handles himself with foreign other foreign leaders?

[00:28:14]>> Well, it it's funny. They all Mertz and the rest of them speak ill of him and then when he goes when he was elected, he went to Notre Dame cathedral and he was like the Shakespearean line that he's that the conspirators mentioned about see he doth stro above them like a colossus. They were all swarming him. Then he went to the pope's funeral. They got very angry that he wore a blue suit and then as soon as he got up they swarmed him. So they don't like him, but they feel in a tragic sense, I guess, that he gets things done. So if they're in a jam and he and they can enlist his support, he's not going to give a rhetorical flourish like Obama or he's not going to be asleep like Biden. If he feels that they are an ally and they are in a jam, he's going to help them. And they know that. and he knows that he's increased the budget and where the gas and oil is just a whole different country here. Our borders are closing. So for all the doom and gloom, uh there's a good in many ways the United States is in the stronger strongest position despite what people say that than it's been in years. And I think the leaders fear that and they know he's strong and he's a better person to be a friend to than an enemy or indifferent to. And so they they had this kind of schizophrenic where Mertz will say, you know, he's awful or he caused this stupid war and then he'll he'll run to the White House and you know, are you going to be here for us if Russian invades and da da da can you supply this and will you buy so many Mercedes please please please that kind of stuff and Trump is getting used to it and I think he handles it pretty well.

[00:29:52]He in the first term he would have been much more thin skinned. I think his attitude is now that I have a person if I were to put him into my words, he would say something like I have a personality that that I know what it is.

[00:30:05]I offend people. I'm crude. I'm uncou.

[00:30:08]But I get things done and they respect that. Unfortunately, that's an element of human nature. You you gravitate to strength and decisiveness and not necessarily appeasement and weakness.

[00:30:18]>> [snorts] >> Well, I'm very much looking forward to your to reading your book, The Counterrevolution: The Fallen Rise of Donald Trump. Victor Davis Hansen, senior fellow at Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time.

[00:30:32]I've really enjoyed speaking with you.

[00:30:34]Thank you. Thank you for having