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| Victor Davis Hanson: ‘Yeah, I'm Really Worried About the Intelligence Agencies' |
| 2026-01-04 |
| [The Daily Signal] In this episode of "Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words," Victor Davis Hanson answers additional questions from listeners, including one on the undue influence of our intelligence agencies on U.S. policy. This content was recorded prior to Hanson’s major surgery on Dec. 30. Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of "Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words" from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes. JACK FOWLER: I guess the second part of the question maybe can be boiled down to an assessment of our intelligence agencies in the last decade. Secretive intelligence agencies, per Scott’s question, having undue influence, and is Donald Trump grabbing the bull by the horns here? VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Yeah, the way to answer that is by commission and omission. If we start the omission, let’s ask ourselves, what did the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency [do]? Did they predict 9-11? No. They had no idea it was coming. Did they know about the Yom Kippur War? No. Did they know Pakistan was going to let off a bomb? No. They had no idea. Did they have any timetable that was accurate about the Iranian nuclear development? Not really. Did they realize the Shah [of Iran] was going to collapse when he did suddenly? No. Did they know that the Afghan Kabul thing when [Joe] Biden said in July he wanted to pull out gradually and [former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen.] Mark Milley said it would be very orderly and the Afghan army was tip-top, did the CIA say, "No, no, it's going to collapse"? No. So, they haven't had a good record. Then the act of commission, are they interfering? Yes. John Brennan, head of the CIA and James Clapper, director of national intelligence, along with [James] Comey sat in the office of Barack Obama when he said to them, I know Donald Trump is colluding [with Russia]. And they said to him, our intelligence says that he's not. And then Obama said, well, go find it. Go find stuff that he is. And so, they did. And then Clapper lied under oath when he said that the National Security Agency doesn't spy on Americans. They do. He apologized for that and said, I said the least untruthful thing. |
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