On Thursday’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Hanson and Jack Fowler pick apart former White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s “silly” attack on second lady Usha Vance.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Jack Fowler: Let me get your quick thoughts on Jen Psaki trashing Usha Vance. I took this from Fox News. Psaki appeared on Tuesday on the podcast “I’ve Had It,” which is hosted by Jennifer Welch, Angie Sullivan. Welch drew backlash for suggesting that Vice President JD Vance should be more outspoken against racism because “his wife is a woman of Indian descent” and he has “mixed race children.”
As a guest, Psaki commented on the Vance family’s personal lives. “I think the little Manchurian candidate, JD Vance, wants to be president more than anything else. I always wonder what’s going on in the mind of his wife. Like, are you OK? Please blink four times. We’ll come over. We’ll save you.” I mean, there’s so much.
Victor Davis Hanson: Everything she said was a lie. First of all, “Manchurian Candidate,” if you watch that movie with Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury.
Fowler: Yeah. I watched it three weeks ago.
Hanson: Was it Laurence Harvey?
Fowler: Laurence Harvey, yep. Yeah, that’s a terrific movie.
Hanson: The whole theme of that, until Hollywood tried to remake it and ruin it, the whole theme was that the communists in North Korea, i.e., the communists in China and Russia, were using a candidate, Angela Lansbury’s son. He’s a little Manchurian candidate working for the first president in modern history that has taken on China. I’m going to call him a Manchurian candidate. Somebody stealthily working for China, like the movie. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That’s Hunter Biden. That is Joe Biden. They work for China.
Fowler: Yeah, 10%.
Hanson: They got money from China. We know that. These were anti-China. So that little metaphor doesn’t work.
And then he is very ambitious. Most vice presidents want to run for president if they’re young and charismatic and successful. Do you think that Barack Obama, when he was a senator, didn’t want to run for president? Do you think Bill Clinton didn’t want to run for president? Do you think Joe Biden, who ran three times, didn’t want to run for president?
So, he’s not unique in ambition. That’s a healthy thing for a vice president. And then, you, Jen Psaki, given your infinite wisdom, are going to blink in code to a woman who graduated from Yale Law School, was a very successful law clerk for Supreme Court justices, and is the second lady of the United States and a mother of three, and you think that she needs your help?
You were famous or infamous, Jen Psaki, because we have a word in the vocabulary now called … “I’ll get back to you.” Remember, “I’ll circle around.” It’s called “Psaki Around” because what you did was every time they ask you a question, you were either too ill-prepared or too disingenuous to answer it.
So, you said, “I’ll circle back. I’ll circle back.” So, “I’ll Psaki back.” And that’s what you did. You were a terrible press secretary. You had a dismal record when you worked for Obama, and I don’t know what to say about it. I mean, why would she think that a very successful Yale-trained lawyer who had worked spectacularly in private practice, married to this other Yale lawyer, have three beautiful kids, and, what, he’s racist or something?
Fowler: Yeah, or she’s insufficiently brown. Maybe that’s it.
Hanson: Insufficiently brown. I had Sikh neighbor. The statewide Sikh temple is two miles from my home. So I would say on any given day, I see 10 or 20 Sikhs and some of my best friends, to use that old colloquialism, are Sikh.
And one Sikh farmer neighbor said once, he hadn’t been here very long, he said, “I don’t understand affirmative action.” And I said, “Why? Why?” And he goes, “Look at me. I’m jet black.” And in those days, it was before Obama, before diversity, where he changed the rules and said, “If you’re not white, it doesn’t matter what you look like.”
But he said, “Why don’t I get affirmative action if it’s based on skin color? I’m darker than black people.” He said, “Is it because of slavery?” I said, “No, it’s because of ongoing racism. He said, “You think I’m a victim of racism?” And I said, “I don’t know. Tell me.” And he said, “Yeah, some people make call me ‘Raghead,’ but they’re not all white who call me ‘Raghead,’” because he wears a turban.
And so, he was astonished, as a recent arrival, about the hierarchy of current victimization that allowed you to get special treatment. Because he thought it was based on skin color, and he felt that he was darker than all of the other groups— Hispanics, Native Americans, blacks, gays. And now I think the Indian community does [get seen as victims] because a part of diversity is you no longer talk about affirmative action or Jim Crow or slavery or actual documented segregationist stuff anymore. It’s right now, if you’re not white, you’re a victim. That’s what Obama introduced. And that demographic went from 12% black to 30% non-white.
Fowler: Yeah.
Hanson: Anyway, I don’t mind if people have debates about stuff, but it’s so silly and she’s such a silly person.
And then JD Vance’s wife has such a successful record on her own. I think JD Vance, he said, “I was very lucky to know my wife. I dated her and she helped me get through law school.” You remember that? “She was much more sophisticated than I was. She was a better student than I was.”
Fowler: They seem to be a very happy and loving couple. Maybe she will be first lady of the United States someday.
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