“If you live by executive order, you can be canceled by executive order,” says Victor Davis Hanson on this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” when talking about the Trump administration’s decision to restructure the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), originally created by President John F. Kennedy via executive order in 1961.
“It's been released that they were subsidizing everything from trans festivities overseas to gay comic books. But what was very interesting was there was a $40 million-plus grant to the Wuhan virology lab and channeled, apparently, through EcoHealth, Peter Daszak’s organization. This is important because under testimony, we were under the impression that Anthony Fauci only had his hands on $600,000.”
“At the very time the Democratic Party is polling, according to Quinnipiac—a very liberal polling organization—just 31% approval, a historical low—they all know what they have to do. And that is move to the center. But Donald Trump has moved so fast, and in so many untraditional ways, that their natural hysteria has overcome their sense of reality.”
For Victor’s latest thoughts, go to: https://victorhanson.com/ Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today.
Two weeks ago, America thought it was leading the AI race. Then out of nowhere, an unknown Chinese start-up turned the American stock market—and that assumption—on its head. DeepSeek, a Chinese company founded less than two years ago, released a free AI chatbot that rivals the most advanced available open AI products. And they did it despite America’s prohibition on shipping our most advanced microchips to China.
America was caught flat-footed, asking how did this happen? And could we actually lose this tech war?
In the early 20th century, as automobiles became more and more popular, the need for a national system of roads in the United States became more evident.
One of the suggested roads connected the city of Chicago, Illinois, on the Great Lakes, with the city of Los Angeles, California, on the Pacific Ocean.
In 1926 the route was established, following paths and trails which had been used for centuries, and quickly found itself as a central object of popular culture.
Learn more about Route 66, its history, and its legacy on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
ButcherBox
New users that sign up for ButcherBox will receive 2 lbs of grass-fed ground beef in every box for the lifetime of their subscription + $20 off your first box when you use code daily at checkout!
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 should not have taken the world by surprise. The attack escalated a war that began in 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea, but its origins are visible as far back as the aftermath of the Cold War, when newly independent Ukraine moved to the center of tense negotiations between Russia and the West. The United States was a leading player in this drama. In fact, Jonathan Haslam argues, it was decades of US foreign policy missteps and miscalculations, unchecked and often reinforced by European allies, that laid the groundwork for the current war.
Isolated, impoverished, and relegated to a second-order power on the world stage, Russia grew increasingly resentful of Western triumphalism in the wake of the Cold War. The United States further provoked Russian ire with a campaign to expand NATO into Eastern Europe--especially Ukraine, the most geopolitically important of the former Soviet republics. Determined to extend its global dominance, the United States repeatedly ignored signs that antagonizing Russia would bring consequences. Meanwhile, convinced that Ukraine was passing into the Western sphere of influence, Putin prepared to shift the European balance of power in Russia's favor.
Timely and incisive, Hubris: The American Origins of Russia's War against Ukraine (Harvard UP, 2025) reveals the assumptions, equivocations, and grievances that have defined the West's relations with Russia since the twilight of the Soviet Union--and ensured that collision was only a matter of time.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has seemingly been waging a personal war on the federal government via his Department of Government Efficiency. In the last few weeks, he and his team have urged millions of federal workers to resign, fed the U.S. Agency for International Development 'into the wood chipper,' and gotten access the Treasury Department’s secure payment system. And on Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Musk's DOGE team would soon ‘plug in’ to the air traffic control system. Charlie Warzel, a staff writer at The Atlantic covering tech and media, says Musk's actions amount to 'an administrative coup.'
Later in the show, Crooked Media’s news editor, Greg Walters, shares stories from federal workers dealing with the fallout.
And in headlines: The White House does damage control over Trump’s plans for the U.S. to ‘take over the Gaza Strip,’ the president signed yet another executive order targeting trans kids, and Scotland says it’s not banning cats.
We're talking about President Trump's latest action on transgender issues. This time, it's to keep transgender athletes out of girls' sports.
Also, as more diversity programs get scrapped, there are fears over a "DEI watch list" posted online.
Plus, we'll tell you about a big turnaround in Army recruitment, more changes coming to Starbucks cafes, and the biggest names in fashion coming together today.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
The #1 Super Bowl ad? Snickers in 2010… because Snickers acted like a Freudian therapist.
Waffle House is charging a 50-cent-per-egg fee… but we tell ya who to blame for Egg-flation is.
New tariffs just hit Shein and Temu… hand it can all be explained with Barbie dolls.
Plus, the newest job in America is “TikTok Coach”... because there is an “i” in “viral.”
$CALM $MAT $SPY
Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: “The Best Idea Yet” — The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with. From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.
What is a sovereign wealth fund? President Trump's executive order calling for a plan to start a U.S. sovereign wealth fund is not a new idea. But it remains a topic of much debate among economists and policymakers. So is a national sovereign wealth fund a good or even viable idea?
A version of this episode originally aired Oct. 1, 2024.
Cecilia, the main character in Olivia Abtahi's The Interpreter, wears an oversized green suit and tie. She's a kid, but she also works as a translator and interpreter for her immigrant parents. Whether at the DMV, the doctor's office or the mechanic, she's there to help out with cultural translation. The story, illustrated by Monica Arnaldo, is based on Abtahi's own experience growing up with an Iranian father and an Argentine mother who both spoke English, but sometimes needed support with cultural nuance. In today's episode, Abtahi speaks with Here & Now's Scott Tong about how translation is a full-time, adult job that can place a lot of pressure on young children. They also discuss the filial duty that first-generation kids sometimes feel and the importance of depicting the parents in the book with dignity.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
