Hello ladies, hello gentlemen, this is the Victor Davis Hanson show we are recording on Saturday. April 2, 2022. I'm Jack Fowler, the host star and name

say Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Eli Anderson senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and

Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. Victor is a best-selling author of the dying

citizen is most recent book, Farmer, Classicist. He'll find he writes twice a week for American greatness and he writes copiously for his own website.

Victor Hanson.com will talk more about that a little later. We've got a lot to talk about on this podcast and the first thing is former vice president Mike Pence's release of his freedom agenda. What does that mean? What is the agenda? And what does it mean politically? We'll get to that and Victor's reflections and analyses right after these important messages.

We're back with the Victor Davis Hanson show on this Saturday night in Millford, Connecticut. I know it's the afternoon out there on the glorious coast. Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody but Victor, I got you. I got you on the other end of the microphone. So my friend, my good friend. So you saw the freedom agenda. It is pretty copious. Mike Pence put this out the other day. He's got a new organization.

Maybe it's not that new. It's called advancing American freedom. That's the platform from which he sent this agenda. There were a number of people who took about for helping to put this together. They include my old friend Larry Cudlow, who's a vice chairman of one of Donald Trump's Think Tank America first policy institute.

Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin, Doug Ducey, the current governor of Arizona, Marjorie Dan and Felser with Susan B. Anthony, K James, about others, others, others are all helped. But what did they help? They helped put together this agenda that Mike Pence says is something Republicans and conservatives should run on for the 2022 congressional elections.

But it kind of looks also like it's a Mike Pence for president 2024 platform and agenda. So Victor, two things here. Your thoughts on the agenda itself. And then yeah, I mean, the people associated with this Kelly and Conway, for example, helped put this together. Does this say anything about people choosing between Pence and Trump looking forward to 20 years ago?

I think I'm probably being way, way too much into this. But anyway, Victor, your thoughts.

Well, I think if you look at the Pence freedom agenda, it's 80% documentary republicanism. And the other 15% is mega adaptations, such as tough on China, secure borders, rein industrializing the United States, symmetrical trade.

And then there's five or five or six percent that is Mike Pence. And that has a stronger emphasis on our God-given rights. I think he used the word God-given and more emphasis on anti-abortion and then more emphasis on internationalism that we have to confront Russia.

And I think the subtext of that is Mike Pence would never say that even though we know what Trump meant, he would never say that Putin is ingenious. And then the second part of your question, Jack, is what is he doing? And I think the way to look at it is.

So here's Trump that sort of towers over five or six would be candidates. And they are Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, perhaps, and Tom Cotton and DeSantis and Mike Pence, few others.

And for the most part, none of them are going to deviate from the mega agenda because they understand there's no consistency for the never trumpers, Romneyism, McCainism, it just doesn't exist anymore. New York Conservatives.

So each person then has to distinguish themselves. And I think Pompeo is saying I have the sterling foreign policy credential. And Tom Cotton says, so do I. And I'm a Jacksonian too, but I also am very worried about how woke is him has corrupted our institutions or Mike Pence wants to put a little bit more religious element into the matrix.

But you're right in the sense that the subtext of all of these agendas is you can get Trumpism without Trump. And that don't mean that that's bad, but what they're saying is, let me just deviate a minute, Jack.

So DeSantis right now is taking on all of these cultural and social issues and he's defiant, you know, if you want to teach, we're not going to allow sex, gender, gay, whatever sexuality with five girls and we're going to get in your face and say no.

That type of preemptive proactive, on apologetic is Trumpism, but the subtext of what DeSantis is saying is, but I'm not tweeting. I'm not on social media. I'm not he is, but not gratuitously so I don't call people names.

So a stormy Daniels come out of my path, I would never hire a skirmucci or a banan. That's I think his message and all of them will then have that message. They will have, as I said, the Trump agenda and then they will try to find an issue that fits their forte and they will be really tough guys like Trump is.

And Trump voter might say, well, I like his agenda, just like Trump's, but I can't trust these people. They don't fight like Trump. They're trying to say I can fight like Trump. This is what Pence is getting to fight, but they're adding that little tweak that they have specialties that distinguish them from Trump and from each other.

And you get all of the Trump without the Trump downside. And that's what that's the contours shaping up for this 2024 primary and that $64,000 question is what is Donald Trump going to do. Everybody says he's running.

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