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.  

We’re now beginning the seventh week of military operations against Iran. There’s a lull now during a negotiation, but the war continues. 

If you look at Iran, it’s a very strange situation because its command and control have been decapitated. Its military has been, I guess you’d call it, inert. There is no air force. There are only PT boats left of its navy. Its army is of no use, since this is an air war. Its nuclear, military, industrial complex has been bombed to smithereens. It’s probably lost half a trillion dollars in a half-century-long investment in military hardware and military industries, at the expense of a very restive population. 

So what was it thinking? How did it get itself in this place? What happened to it? Well, it had an expansive view of itself—an inflated view. Why? 

During the Obama administration, the Obama State Department and President Barack Obama himself sent messages to Iran that maybe a Shiite crescent—Tehran, Damascus, Beirut, Gaza, people in Yemen—might balance the Sunni Arabs of the Gulf with their money and the military power of the Jewish state of Israel. And Obama might step in from time to time to adjudicate this—I guess they called it creative tension.

In other words, we said there was no moral difference between the Iranian bloc and its opponents, when there was, of course. 

Well, that gave the impression to Iran that we were afraid of them, or that we would always be willing to make concessions. When Biden came in, the first thing he did was beg them to get back into the Iran deal. That inflated their egos even further. Then he lifted sanctions and gave them $100 billion of new revenue. 

Meanwhile, the Iranians were looking at Russia going into Ukraine, and the United States had done nothing other than say our reaction would hinge on whether it was a minor or major invasion. Then came Oct. 7. The Iranians had subsidized Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, and their proxies and clients in Syria and Iraq, with the idea that they had created a ring of fire around the Jewish state.

After the Oct. 7 massacres—which they denied having knowledge of, but which they obviously strategically planned with their clients—they thought the United States wouldn’t do anything. And they were pretty much right about that during the Biden administration, if not worse. 

We kind of distanced ourselves from Israel, and Iran knew that. They felt that after Oct. 7 it would be such a traumatic experience for the Israeli government that it wouldn’t do much. A lot of this was hinged on the pseudo-reputation they had of being militarily invincible, but there was never any proof that was true. 

They ran the Iraq war of 1980, and they didn’t do very well. Khomeini had to sue for peace, even though they had almost one and a half times the population of Iraq. But they were the terror of the Middle East. People said, “Whatever you do—go into Afghanistan, go into Iraq, bomb—don’t get near Iran.” 

They’re crazy people. They have 93 million people. They’re the second-largest country in the Middle East by population. They’re the second-largest by area. They’re dangerous people. 

They’re fanatic Shiites, and they’re willing to die for their cause. But if you actually looked at what they had done, they had achieved that reputation through surrogate use of terrorism—blowing up embassies, blowing up Marine barracks, assassinating individuals, sending weaponry to kill Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq—but they’d never really shown any impressive performance on the battlefield, either at sea, on the ground, or in the air. 

And so they thought they could get away with Oct. 7. That gave them an even greater inflated sense of self, because they kept telling us that between all of their proxies and their own arsenals they might have 300,000 short- and long-range missiles, rockets, and drones, and they would collapse Israel under a sea of explosives. 

They thought that even after Oct. 7, Israel wouldn’t dare do anything to them because they had sophisticated Chinese and Russian air defenses. What they didn’t count on were two things. 

Oct. 7 changed the entire mentality of Israel. It was the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Israelis said you cannot live like this. You cannot sustain a country like this. You can’t have a sword of Damocles descending on you periodically. 

So we’re going to have to go to the head of the snake. Hezbollah we’ll deal with. Yes, Hamas we’re going to deal with. The Houthis we will deal with. The people in Syria we’ll deal with. But in one way or another, they get money and weapons from Tehran. 

And we don’t believe they’re indomitable—not now, not after Oct. 7. In that 12-day war last year, they destroyed the entire air-defense system of Iran, and then they began taking out its military capability and its nuclear industry and infrastructure. 

They called us in and asked us, and we were more than ready to comply because it was in our national interest. In about 25 to 30 hours, we blew up their nuclear facilities. We thought that might be the end. We thought they got the message—but, of course, they didn’t. 

Their proxies began to shoot missiles again. They began, according to our intelligence, to resume work on their nuclear facilities and nuclear proliferation trajectory. And so the United States entered negotiations with them again. Like all negotiations with the Iranians, they were drawn out. They were meant to delay while they rearm, enrich more uranium, or sic their terrorist proxies on Israel or individuals in the West through terrorist attacks. 

But again, they didn’t count on two things: Donald Trump doesn’t care, and Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t care. So they resumed the war. Now, as we go into the seventh week, all of Iran’s assets are destroyed. It’s losing more than $400 million a day in lost revenue because of the U.S. blockade. It has no cards to play. 

All it can hope is that someone will call off the United States. And we will talk about that in a later video—who those something-or-somebodies are that might save Iran at the 11th hour. Because it will not be able to save itself if the United States decides to take out its bridges, take out its electrical generation capability, and force it back to the negotiating table—not to negotiate, but to submit to terms. 

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

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The United States and Iran seem poised for a second round of talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, this week, and many, though sometimes conflicting, reports have surfaced on the details.

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Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, escalated an existing feud with fellow Rep. Cory Mills on Monday. In a post on X, Mace did not mince words when […]

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Virginia, once a model for independent redistricting, is asking voters to temporarily hand the Democratic-controlled Legislature power to redraw congressional lines having a 10-1 partisan edge.

The Old Dominion State has 11 U.S. House districts. Five are considered strongly Democratic, two lean Democratic, one is a toss-up, two lean Republican, and one is strongly Republican.

Under the current district map, the Virginia delegation to the U.S. House consists of six Democrats and five Republicans.

But a new map proposed by Democrat state lawmakers in October would radically alter the political landscape: Five districts would be strongly Democratic, five would lean Democratic, and one would be strongly Republican.

The proposed change comes six years after Virginia decided to reform its redistricting process in an effort to draw fair maps.

In 2020, voters approved a state constitutional amendment that established the bipartisan Virginia Redistricting Commission (VRC), taking redistricting power away from the General Assembly.

Last fall, however, Virginia Democrats started a process to implement a new map through a new constitutional amendment.

Amending the State Constitution

To amend Virginia’s Constitution, the General Assembly must first pass a bill. After the next general election takes place, the newly seated Assembly must pass the same bill again, and the governor must sign it. The resulting referendum is then put before the voters.

If voters approve, the constitution is amended.

In October, the prior General Assembly passed a redistricting bill and proposed maps. Following the 2025 general election, a newly elected Assembly in January passed the same bill again, through a party-line vote. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed the bill.

The resulting referendum, to be voted on Tuesday, will let voters have a say on those maps.

Democrats argue their highly partisan redistricting referendum is intended to counter Republican redistricting in other states. Republicans say the referendum violates constitutional timing rules and overrides the independent commission.

Multiple GOP-led lawsuits have ensued, with the majority being filed in the Circuit Court of Tazewell County. Despite those lawsuits, the Virginia Supreme Court has allowed the April 21 vote to proceed. A legal review of the entire process will occur after the election.

Follow the Money

Republicans and Democrats have spent over $83 million campaigning for their preferred outcome in Tuesday’s election.

Virginians for Fair Elections has spent over $62 million urging voters to vote “Yes,” which would produce new maps. Virginians for Fair Maps has spent about $21 million urging voters to vote “No,” which would maintain the status quo.

Each organization has placed ad buys, sent emails, distributed yard signs, knocked on doors, and brought well-known former politicians back into the spotlight to persuade voters to their cause. 

Local partisan committees also have weighed in with their own efforts, creating signage, recording radio ads, and sending out postcards in an effort to reach voters. 

A poll by State Navigate found that 50.7% of Virginians plan to vote “Yes,” while 45.4% of Virginians plan to vote “No.” The poll had a 3.7% margin of error.

The ultimate fate of the referendum is uncertain, however, as voters could vote down the change, or the Virginia Supreme Court could rule against it and declare the election void.

The post Virginians Set to Vote on a Map That Could Lock in Democratic House Dominance appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump dispelled the notion on Monday that Israel talked him into a war with Iran. He wrote in a Truth Social post, “Israel never talked me into the […]

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'Our thoughts are with the injured and their loved ones'

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., admitted Sunday that the Democrats’ extreme gerrymandering effort was never about “fairness,” but rather about going after President Donald Trump. On the eve of the election, Virginia’s junior U.S. senator acknowledged that the point of the gerrymandering plan proposed by his party is to disenfranchise millions of his constituents in order […]

President Donald Trump says it is "highly unlikely" he will extend the current ceasefire with Iran beyond its looming deadline, increasing pressure on negotiators to secure a broader agreement within days.Trump told Bloomberg News in an interview that the two-week truce he...

President Donald Trump says it is "highly unlikely" he will extend the current ceasefire with Iran beyond its looming deadline, increasing pressure on negotiators to secure a broader agreement within days.Trump told Bloomberg News in an interview that the two-week truce he...

A woman facing voter fraud charges in California said her first reaction when investigators contacted her last August was, “Thank God, finally, someone’s looking into this.”

The state is probing why Laura Yourex registered her dog Maya, a Boxer, to vote in the 2020 election. In an interview with the New York Post, she said she was testing the system to expose what she believed were vulnerabilities.

Yourex said she notified the Orange County registrar of voters and the Huntington Beach City Attorney’s Office of the dog’s registration, and did so repeatedly.

“I’ve given my picture of Maya and her ballot, and given my phone number, and would never hear from anybody,” Yourex told the newspaper.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were broad concerns about how California’s mail-in ballots were distributed.

“I think that’s really what kind of set me off. We have two people living in this house—my husband and I—and we got six cards to register to vote,” she told the Post. “I was like, well, that’s ridiculous.”

She added, “If you look at the actual form that I sent in, it’s literally a made-up name, made-up birthday, no Social Security number at all. The only thing that was real on it was my address.”

A Republican-backed ballot initiative is advocating for voter ID in California.

The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database shows that since 2020—when Maya was registered—there have been 25 adjudicated cases of voter fraud in the state. Of those, 23 ended in a criminal conviction.

The case also comes amid the debate over the SAVE Act, as the Senate considers a House-passed measure to require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification to vote nationwide.

On another front in California, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco launched an election fraud investigation of the 2025 special election after a group of citizens raised concerns of irregularities.

After Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor, seized 650,000 ballots, the California state Supreme Court last week ordered him to pause his probe. A group of media outlets asked a court to unseal the warrant that led to the ballot seizures.

The post DOGGONE: California Woman Registered Her Boxer to Vote to Prompt Investigation. Now She Faces Charges. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

At least two Canadian tourists died in a mass shooting attack at Mexico’s Sun Pyramid near Mexico City, which left four others with gunshot injuries. Two tourists sustained numerous injuries when they fell off the pyramid while running away from the gunfire, say officials.

The post Two Canadian Tourists, Gunman Killed in Shooting Attack at Mexico’s Sun Pyramid, Say Officials appeared first on Breitbart.

Almost 60 percent of GOP voters want fewer or no legalized migrants, according to a new poll for The Economist magazine.

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Joseph E. diGenova, a prominent American lawyer and conservative political commentator, was sworn in Monday as counselor to the Attorney General and assigned to lead […]

Source

Miller alleges that a security officer came up to him and said that LIV was keeping an eye on him

Democrats everywhere should register as foreign lobbyists. After all, Democrats routinely lobby for everyone except American citizens. In a remarkable clip posted to Facebook, prominent YouTuber Nick Shirley — the […]

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Financial success is not driven by numbers alone, but rather a more comprehensive and cohesive understanding of behavior, external factors, and life events. A thoughtful, experienced financial planner can help their clients to better navigate uncertainty, adapt to change, and stay grounded in long-term strategy. This has become an increasingly pertinent issue in the modern […]

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors 'acted unlawfully and exceeded its statutory authority by seizing [Recorder Heap's] personnel, systems and equipment and refusing to return them.'