Excerpt, released on X (Twitter). The transcript of the full episode follows.

Transcript from the full episode, with Victor Davis Hanson:

Tucker  On January 6, 2021, a large group of people who care passionately about the American Constitution arrived at the U.S. Capitol Building. They came there because they believed that democracy was dying. They had concluded, based on mounting evidence, that the 2020 election had been subverted by the most powerful people in the country. They believed that election was neither free nor fair, and they were angry about it. A few of them in their anger, broke windows and assaulted cops. Then they walked into the building, in many cases through doors that were being held open by law enforcement. Once they got inside, a Capitol police officer shot a military veteran to death in a doorway outside the speaker’s lobby. Her name was Ashley Babbitt. She was unarmed. She had no history of violence. That is a factual description of what happened on January 6th. But that is not how the day was described by the leadership of either political party in Washington or by their stenographers in the national media. Within hours, virtually everyone on television was calling January 6th an insurrection led by Donald Trump.

Soundbite [00:01:03] The president is accused of inciting a violent insurrection on the US Capitol. All of Washington is scared and people are trying to figure out how to keep him from doing more harm to the country than he’s already done with by inciting that insurrection. On Wednesday, the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol was an act of insurrection. The president incited an insurrection against Congress to prevent the peaceful transition of power. A white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection. All 50 states are under threat of armed insurrection by pro-Trump rioters. We need to be focused on embracing the Constitution, not embracing insurrection. I’m announcing that the House will be establishing a select committee on the January six insurrection. To open the doors for them and let them grace the people’s house. Donald J. Trump called for the insurrection against the United States of America.

Tucker  This was pretty puzzling to watch. Whatever else January 6th was, in some ways we still don’t know exactly what it was, it was not a Trump-led insurrection. The crowd had no guns. They had no plan to overthrow the government. Nothing like that has ever emerged. And above all, Trump was not leading it. He was miles away at the White House at the time, where he issued a public statement calling for calm and nonviolence. So why were the people on television telling us that Trump led an insurrection? This was, of course, a lie, but it was also a very obvious lie. So clearly, we are watching the rollout of a talking point, words crafted for a specific purpose. But what was the purpose? We got an answer to that question yesterday when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that because he led an insurrection, Donald Trump’s name cannot appear on the state’s ballot next fall. The four liberal judges who concluded this cited as their justification Article Three of the 14th Amendment, which was written in 1868 to keep former Confederate officials from holding office. That was the sum total of their reasoning. Despite the fact Donald Trump has never been convicted by any court of insurrection. And although the 14th Amendment specifically does not apply to the presidency, Donald Trump cannot run for president because he’s an insurrectionist. This seemed like lunacy because it was lunacy. 3000 miles away in El Salvador, there was no question about what was happening. The United States has lost its ability to lecture any other country about, quote, democracy, wrote Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. And yet in this country, no one on the left dared say that. Instead, Donald Trump’s enemies celebrated. The Atlantic magazine expressed gratitude that unelected judges had, quote, rescued the country from the desires of voters because actually, that’s democracy. And then there was Jena Griswald. That’s the Colorado secretary of state. You may not have seen her before, but you will instantly recognize the category she represents. Unhappy 39-year-old liberal women with Ivy League degrees and a deep streak of authoritarian impulses. Here’s Griswold on MSNBC last night explaining that a conventional legal process is no longer necessary for the left to get its way. No more trials or evidence or jury verdicts. An accusation made on television is now enough to remove a frontrunner from the presidential race. If Nancy Pelosi and Joe Scarborough call you bad, Americans are not allowed to vote for you. Watch.

Soundbite [00:04:42] Look, I believe he incited the insurrection. There were big questions around Section Three of the 14th Amendment, and the Colorado Supreme Court has weighed in in a very loud way, making themselves clear. Frankly, we’ve never had a president try to steal the presidency and engage in insurrection ever before. So Trump’s actions are unprecedented. The Colorado Supreme Court confirmed that the district court got it right, that he did engage in insurrection. I think Section Three of the 14th Amendment has to apply to the presidency, because if not, it’s a get out of jail free card. And in a country of laws where no man is above another, we can’t have one office be able to do whatever they want when it comes to rebellion and then be able to be seated in office again.

Tucker [00:05:34] None of this seems very American. All of it looks like the actual end of democracy. Where does this go? For perspective, we are joined by one of this country’s wisest voices, Victor Davis Hanson. Professor, thank you so much for coming on. Before you provide an overview of what we’re watching, is it legal in the United States to punish someone for a crime he’s never been convicted of committing?

VDH [00:05:58] Yeah, I think that’s the key issue, that no one has ever charged Donald Trump with a formal crime of insurrection, nor has he been convicted of it. So if a particular judge just by fiat says he’s guilty of insurrection it’s contrary to the Constitution, is contrary to the 14th Amendment, it says people should not be denied, in an earlier section, of the right of due process. So I don’t think a person can just arbitrarily pick some candidate and said, you know what, I think you’re an insurrectionist. And so we’re on new ground. But more importantly, all the issues that you raised about January 6 really cast into doubt whether it was it was more of a buffoonish riot at times than a conspiracy. There was no, you don’t have an insurrectionist when the supposed head of the insurrectionists tells a group of unarmed people to assemble peacefully. That’s not an insurrection. And and more importantly, we have a lot of other evidence. We have people in the Capitol Police that had warned that there was not enough security. And for some mysterious reason, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, would not beef up security. We have Matthew Rosenberg, who was a Pulitzer Prize journalist, who was there and said that he saw FBI informants everywhere. And when asked about that, the director of the FBI would not answer. We never got the accurate information about how many people were killed, under what circumstances they died. We have people in the Congress claiming there were five and six people who were killed that day when they actually committed suicide much later. So there was an effort of the January 6 committee to suppress free debate and cross-examination. So the idea that he’s guilty of an insurrection is preposterous. But it does beg this question. We’ve had people all through our history who have questioned elections. In 2004, barbara Boxer, a U.S. senator, along with over 30 House representatives, did not certify the Ohio electoral vote. They didn’t. They tried to stop George Bush’s reelection. In 2016, you remember, Tucker, we had all of these celebrities that were organized by the DNC that cut commercial after commercial begging the electors to renounce their constitutional duty and not reflect the popular vote in their own states, but to throw their electoral votes over to Hillary Clinton, even though she didn’t win their states. So it’s kind of preposterous. And, you know, when he’s talking about insurrection, it’s a very fluid definition. Kamala Harris, you remember, Tucker, in 2020, right after some of the worst violence in Washington, D.C., and during the 120 days, that was an insurrection by their own definition because they torched a federal courthouse, a police precinct, the historic St John’s Episcopal Church. They tried to swarm the White House grounds and sent the president of the United States into a bunker. And during that that very incendiary time, Kamala Harris, who was soon to be nominated vice president and who is the current vice president and who would be president if an ailing Joe Biden is not able to fill those duties, said these are these demonstrations or whatever we want to call them, we’re not going to stop. And then the key word she said, they should not stop and they’re going to go on and on and on all the way to the election. We had the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in 2020 lead, a kind of a mob outside the Supreme Court, the very doors of the Supreme Court. He called out two justices by name: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh. You have sowed the wind. You are going to reap the whirlwind. And then the key words: you don’t know what’s going to hit you.

Schumer [00:09:45] I want to tell you, Gorsuch I want to tell you, Kavanaugh you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.

VDH [00:10:00] And that was pretty, insurrection. That was almost a call to violence. So if they want to redefine insurrection, that’s going to boomerang back. The other thing, Tucker, is you’ve mentioned this a lot. This is a, this is a pattern of first, if we could call that precedent. We have never tried to we’d never impeached a president two times like we did Donald Trump. We’ve never tried a private citizen, an ex-president, in the Senate when he had left office like we did with Donald Trump. We’ve never had 22 months and $40 million on a complete hoax, the Russian collusion hoax, to destroy an administration. We’ve never had 51 prior intelligence authorities rounded up by Mike Morell, former CIA interim director, and Anthony Blinken, the current secretary of state, who deliberately lied to the American people on the eve of a debate and an election, to throw that election in a sense, by implying that this Hunter laptop in the in the possession of the FBI was Russian disinformation. We’ve never had a ex-president have his home raided by the FBI on a dispute over classified documents which traditionally have been settled bureaucratically or civilly. So this is something that’s in a pattern of trying to destroy Donald Trump extra legally and without a voice of the people. And, you know, it’s going to be a, just to finish, Tucker, it’s going to be a precedent because another question that’s beg, what do red state governors do now? Do they say, okay, I guess the state has the ability now to disqualify candidates on their opinion on whether they’ve violated their oath of office or engaged in insurrection, insurrectionary activity. So we’re not going to have Kamala Harris on the ballot in our state for what she said that contributed to the violence of 2020. Or maybe they could say Joe Biden deliberately destroyed federal immigration law. He just deliberately destroyed border security. He let in illegally and unlawfully 8 million people who unlawfully still reside. And therefore, that was an Insurrectionary Act to change the demography or get a future constituency for his agenda. And we’re not going to put him on the ballot. Do we really want to go there? Is that the… This is a long, sad travesty. It’s a long story. And this latest chapter reminds us this is not going to end well. All of this lawfare and extralegal activity to destroy a candidate. And it really started, Tucker, with Hillary Clinton and Fusion GPS in 2016 when they deliberately created a complete lie with the help of the FBI and the CIA and the Obama administration to destroy a candidate that they feared might otherwise beat them in a fair and free election.

Tucker [00:13:01] It does seem like the country is at stake. It’s felt that way for a long time. But this sort of pushes it right to a head. If you are allowed to prevent voters from voting for your political opponent, if people can be punished for crimes they’ve never even been charged with, then both our electoral system and our justice system are corrupt and meaningless, and our democracy itself is fake. I mean, it’s all very obvious this is much bigger than Trump or even the coming election. And I’m wondering why out of all the candidates running for president, really, only two have said that: Bobby Kennedy, a lifelong liberal Democrat running as an independent, and Vivek Ramaswamy who is business guy who has never run for anything before. But all the mainstream candidates kind of said, Oh yeah, it’s bad, but didn’t explain that this is a pivotal moment for the country. Where are the responsible people in both parties who understand that our system itself is at stake?

Victor Davis Hanson [00:13:59] Well, I think what’s happened is over the last two and a half years, the left is prepped the battlefield in such a way, if I could use that term battlefield that any mention of January 6th was supposed to be career ending if you said or wrote anything –

Schumer [00:14:15] Oh, I know

Victor Davis Hanson [00:14:17] If you had any questions about what happened then you were you were dead career wise. And I saw that where I was at Stanford University. And the result was people were just afraid to go there. And so they say his is bad. It’s a miscarriage of justice. But they don’t say that this is unheard of in the United States. We don’t do this in the United States. If we do this in the United States, it’s going to have a downward spiral of tit for tat. And so far, all of these things that we delineate: The collusion, the disinformation, the two impeachments, the raid on the Trump home, Fusion GPS, all of that stuff is all predicated on the idea that conservatives… And you mentioned just now and Republicans play by the Marquess of Queensbury rules. So the left is essentially saying we are morally superior than you people, so we have the right to use any means necessary to further our morally superior ends or agenda. And you won’t use the same mechanism and we assume that you won’t. And therefore we’re going to continue this asymmetrical attack on you. And at some point, somebody is going to play Lee Atwater, 1988 advisor to George Bush and say, you know what? We’re not going to do this anymore and we’re going to reply tit for tat, not because we want to, but we’re exasperated. We have no other mechanism to stop you from destroying the rule of law and the constitution of this country. And when we get to that point, it’s going to be very frightening.

Tucker [00:15:49] So the right believes in the system. The left wants to tear down the system. So it’s an asymmetrical contest right there. They have different aims. But what do you think in practice…What is the practical response? What’s the wise response to this? Not just from Republicans and right wingers, but from anyone who wants to live in a civilized country and preserve our systems? What do we do?

Victor Davis Hanson [00:16:16] Well, I think we try to exhaust all legal means. There are going to be court challenges in the Supreme Court and I think as influencers of public opinion, we try to to explain to the American people where they’re going and that there’s historical precedents and other places and other times that this will lead to the destruction of a constitutional system if we’re not careful. And then we have to organize. I think we’re going to have to organize and unite on the conservative side around the person who wins the nomination, no matter who that is. And I think if Donald Trump wins, then there’s no space for never-Trumpism. If DeSantis wins, there’s no space. They have to unite. They have to win the Senate. They have to win the House. And if they don’t, then we’re in big trouble. And then we have to keep pressuring them so that if they do win the Senate and the House and the White House, they don’t say, you know, we’re going to follow the John McCain Mitt Romney trajectory because then it would be futile. So we have to continue to pressure them because there’s no other alternative. And I think the left wants another alternative. They want another mass demonstration because they have an agenda that no one wants. Their candidate for reelection – the current president polls with 33%. The border, crime, energy, foreign policy, inflation, they all poll even less. So they have no popular constituency. They know that. So they’re waging law for lawfare and through the control of the institutions, the corporate boardroom, entertainment, K through 12, universities, the media, the Silicon Valley, social media. That’s what they’re trying to do. And we’ve got to use every ounce of our courage and imagination and capability to stop them. It’s no time to be silent, Tucker. Everybody’s got to step up, according to their station and saying, we’re not going to let you in the year 2023, destroy this country. Too many people have died at places like Okinawa and Shiloh to save this country, to let a bunch of bankrupt, spoiled generation people destroy it. And we can’t let it happen. We have to really start fighting back through every legal means possible.

Tucker [00:18:33] I was really struck three years ago and continue to be struck by the reaction to the death of Ashli Babbitt. Nothing more obviously immoral than murdering an unarmed woman, and yet our entire political class celebrated it. The man who shot her was called a hero. There was no investigation of any consequence into it. And the glee that they showed at the murder of this woman made me think maybe she’s not the last person they’d like to shoot. And at the same time, they politicized the military and federal law enforcement and local law enforcement moved a lot of ammo into federal storehouses. I mean, should we be concerned? You know, anyone who would gloat over the killing of Ashli Babbitt probably would gloat over your killing. No? I mean, how worried should we be?

Victor Davis Hanson [00:19:25] Well, I’m worried not about the ride. I’m worried that the left knows that the Republican candidate… It sooks like Donald Trump, but it could be Ron DeSantis or someone else. But they know they’re going to win. If Joe Biden is the candidate, they know they are, they’re going to take the House and keep it keep the house, and they think they’re going to take the Senate. But more importantly, Tucker, they know what they would do if they were Donald Trump, for example, and they had suffered like Donald Trump from people like them. And that’s why they’re frightened of themselves, because they’re thinking, if I was Donald Trump and I had all this power and he had suffered what I did to him, I know what I would do. And that’s why they’re projecting all of this stuff about dictatorial behavior and insurrection onto Donald Trump. It’s a mirror image of what they would do if they had the power. And so they’re terribly frightened that when Donald Trump or whoever the nominee is gets power, that he will enact a very conservative agenda and have a lot of ability to do so with both houses of Congress, and they don’t know how to stop it. And so they’re desperately trying to think of ways and any means necessary. They’re capable of anything. And that’s to your point. And so what they want, though, Tucker, they want to trigger us to to do something that they always looking for a crisis that should never go to waste, whether it’s the COVID lockdown or the epidemic itself or the 2008 meltdown or the George Floyd death, they’re always looking for a crisis. And January 6th gave them that ammunition so that they can change the political landscape or reinterpret the Constitution in a way that otherwise they’d have no political support without terrifying people. So they’re trying to terrify us so they can take extra constitutional measures because they have no popularity and they’re losing the will of the people. I think if we just persevere and keep calm and fight them with every ounce of our ability, they will crack and they will stop. But there’s no other way to do it. I think too many of us have been… We just sort of retreat to the sidelines and say, you know, I’m going to move to Tennessee or something. I can’t deal with these people. They’re crazy and we’ve got to get out, get back in the arena, all of us.

Tucker [00:21:49] I feel guilty for leaving California and impressed that you stayed. It’s the pretty state. There’s no reason we should surrender to illegal aliens and angry white liberals. So bless you for doing that and for joining us today. Victor Davis Hanson, thank you.

Victor Davis Hanson [00:22:03] Thank you, Tucker.

NOTE: I recently subscribed to the Tucker Carlson Network, where this transcript was published, along with the full video interview.