A tense altercation between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ensued in the Oval Office today.

The bottom line: The United States of America will not be extorted by a country whose leaders are more interested in what they can get out of the American people than peace.

The point of the meeting? To sign a U.S.-Ukraine mineral deal. Trump is “very tired of subsidizing and paying for far-distant problems when we’re running a $37 trillion national debt,” and this deal would not only offset those costs but also, by inviting “American business into Ukraine, to help rebuild it and to profit … [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will be less eager to attack you if he understands there’s a thriving American concession there,” argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”

“Donald Trump is incurring a lot of criticism lately on the Ukrainian war. He's trying to negotiate an end to the war. Remember, there's probably somewhere around 1.5 million dead, wounded, missing, and captured on both sides, together. That is the largest casualty rate figure total in Europe since the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 and 1943. In his “Art of the Deal” style he came in and he said some things the last week that got people very angry. I'll just give you two examples. He said that Zelenskyy was a dictator and that he ‘should have stopped the war and never started it.’

“That got people anguished because we know that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24th of 2022. So, why did Donald Trump say that? Of course, he doesn't believe that Zelenskyy started the war because he has campaigned himself on the following narrative: ‘Under George Bush, in 2008, Russia invaded Ossetia and Georgia.

“‘In 2014, under the Obama administration, they invaded the Donbas and Crimea. On February 24th of 2022, under Joe Biden, they tried to take Kyiv. However, of the last four administrations, there was one in which they did not leave their borders to invade another nation—my administration. Why? Because unlike the prior three presidents, I was able to establish deterrence.’”

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There is a growing outrage against Elon Musk, including threats to his life over DOGE’s work to find and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the U.S. federal government. On this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” a Daily Signal original series, Hanson delves into the reasons behind this backlash, its broader implications and how the Left is making the “chemotherapy”, DOGE’s work, out to be worse than the “cancer”, wasteful government spending.

 “We're starting to see, kind of, an outrage where people are threatening a life, even, of Elon Musk and defending all sorts of indefensible expenditures.”

“One thing I think is lost in this messaging, this tough love, this effort to restrain the government is that, I think, the Trump administration and Musk must convey that.

They must say we don't enjoy putting people out of work. We don't enjoy rounding people up, but we have to because these people, the Left, the Biden people, the Jacobins, they put us in that position. They were the ones that destroyed institutions. They were the ones that broke the law. They were the ones that are bankrupting us.”

00:00 Introduction to Tough Love Messaging

04:38 The Necessity of Tough Actions

04:42 Blaming the Left for the Crisis

04:53 Destruction of Institutions

04:56 Breaking the Law

04:58 Economic Bankruptcy

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Although the Elon Musk-endorsed Alternative for Deutschland garnered over 20% of the vote in the country’s recent elections, the “ultra-far-right” party will likely be blocked from joining a majority coalition in the parliament, further alienating an increasing number of concerned Germans who believe their country is no longer the “powerhouse” of Europe, argues Victor Davis Hanson on this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”

“But here's my point, even though they have about half of the support of all German voters, it's likely that the Alternative for Germany will not be represented. And the seats that will comprise the majority will be made up by either a socialist party or the green party, or both.

“Here's my point, again, there's a populist, nationalist backlash, a counterrevolution to the craziness of Europe. And we know JD Vance has outlined that craziness: low fertility, high energy prices, bans against fracking, open borders, dishonorment, deindustrialization, etc. But the conservatives will not have a voice under their parliamentary democracy, even though they earned a voice. And that's only going to make them more polarized. …

“Mr. [Friedrich] Merz said in a speech that given the trajectory of America under Donald Trump, he's distancing himself and he doesn't really consider the United States an ally anymore, at least he said Trump's America.

“Think about that for a second. Now, I don't want to go through ancient history, but we fought two wars with Germany. And we defeated them both, but we also came to their rescue. I think we rescued them in World War I from kaiserism. And that allowed them to have a brief romance with democracy. And then we rescued them from Nazism. They paid a terrible price. But they did lose two wars they should have lost. And then we protected them in the Cold War. … ”

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In this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson discusses a recent heated exchange between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet T. Mills at a White House meeting of governors.

The confrontation centered on Trump’s executive order banning males from participating in female sports, which Mills resisted. 

Hanson argues that Mills’ stance is not only out of line with public opinion, but also basic constitutional principles:

“[Gov. Janet T. Mills’] wrong on public opinion and she’s wrong on sporting authorization. She’s wrong in the idea that a state law can supersede a federal law.

“Because, if she were right, she would destroy female sports as we know it. …

“Under our Constitution, when a state and federal law are in conflict, the federal law predominates. The alternative is something that caused the Civil War. … 

“I would remind her that there’s some things that she’s not thinking about. No. 1, that issue, according to liberal polls, is about 80-to-20 in favor of keeping female sports for biological females. The person, most recently, who won a pole vault contest in Maine was a biological male. And they usually have about a 20% higher rate of performance in pole vaulting because of their muscular skeletal frame. …

“Remember, women who transition to men, that is biological women, do not win male sports. And that should tell you something. It’s that the idea of genderism, transgenderism, is not a third sex. It’s primarily predicated on whether you’re a biological male or a biological female. If you’re a biological female, you do not do well as a transgendered male.”

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More than 6 in 10 voters believe President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency will significantly reduce federal government spending over the next year. 

Up until now, most Republicans have cheered Elon Musk’s cost-cutting measures at DOGE. But there are signs of frustration in some quarters of Washington. 

Customs and Border Protection encountered only 200 illegal aliens at the U.S. southern border on Saturday. That is the lowest number of apprehensions in a single day in over 15 years. 

Plus, our news flash: 

The White House announced a big change for the press pool, the group of journalists who cover Trump’s activities. 

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt also forcefully defended the choice of Dan Bongino to serve as deputy director of the FBI. 

Rachel Maddow took aim at her own employer Monday night after MSNBC fired Joy Reid. 

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For the first time in decades, the Iranian regime is defenseless. Will President Donald Trump seize on the moment and finally depose of the brutal theocracy before it gets “the bomb” or instead pursue another “maximum pressure” campaign, cutting the ayatollah off from the rest of the world? Victor Davis Hanson lays out these options and what role the MAGA worldview may play in the Trump administration’s decision-making on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words”

“Remember that fable of our youth when the mice got together and they say, ‘The cat is picking us off one by one. We need to put a bell around his neck so we could be warned.’ And everybody said, ‘That's a great idea.’

“The next item of business among the mice assembly was, who will bell the cat? What I'm getting at is the Europeans, I think even the Chinese and Russians, don't want on their border a nuclear Iran. The Americans, the Israelis, everybody knows they should not—that theocratic regime should not get the bomb. But who bells the cat? ...

“Maybe the correct stance of the incoming Trump administration is to go back to the maximum-pressure campaign of Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump and have strict sanctions on oil exports, maybe even a blockade, put the pressure on so the people then throw the theocracy out itself.

“But on the other hand, people are going to argue, ‘Wait a minute, there are no Iranian air defenses. For one of the few times in history, that regime is naked. There is no Assad. There is no Hezbollah. There is no Hamas. There is no Houthis that are capable of, as surrogates, attacking the Israeli state. 

“‘So, maybe you could attack Iran—just this brief window—because Israel, in a series of brilliant air responses, has destroyed its ability—Tehran's ability to defend itself.’”

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