Trump’s Combative Style Puts the Next Generation of MAGA Leaders to the Test: Victor Davis Hanson [WATCH]

Victor Davis Hanson and David DesRosiers discussed President Donald Trump’s political style and whether the movement he built will eventually adopt a more disciplined tone under figures such as Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Hanson said much of the public discussion surrounding Trump has been distorted by hostility toward anyone who tries to evaluate the president’s record without immediately joining one political camp or another.

“And they trash, and they intimidate anybody who tries to take a disinterested view of what Trump has actually done,” Hanson said.

“And I tried to do that.”

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He said his approach was deliberately removed from Washington insiders and anonymous sourcing.

“I tried to do that with a void. I didn’t want to go to Washington, and I didn’t want to go to the White House. I didn’t want to talk to insiders. I didn’t want to have anonymous sources,” Hanson said.

Instead, Hanson said he focused on Trump’s public statements, recorded appearances and actions.

“I just wanted to read as much as I could and look at all of the tapes and video and make a disinterested analysis of who he was and what he was trying to do,” Hanson said.

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DesRosiers said Hanson’s distance from Trump personally gave him a different perspective on the president.

“Yeah, one of the things I I think that you show that you know I think you don’t have a great personal relationship to Trump,” DesRosiers said.

“I think it’s one of respect, but you you really do study the man from the farmhouse and you do what you’re supposed to do: take people by what they say and what they do in their actions.”

DesRosiers argued that Trump has created something politically significant, but said potential successors appear to be approaching the same movement with a more controlled communication style.

“And I think that you know, kind of Trump has stood something up that’s very significant,” DesRosiers said.

He pointed specifically to Vance and Rubio.

“One of the things to get back to your historical example, I’ll let you say his name again, so I don’t kind of torture it. But it’s like one of the things that I think that’s true about looking at J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio is that both of the people that are following after Trump, right, are really tighter in their language, right?” DesRosiers said.

He described them as possible examples of a more refined version of Trump’s political approach.

“That both of them are kind of examples of, you know, a real kind of Trump 2.0. You have a minute to comment on that,” DesRosiers said.

Hanson agreed that the question has become an important debate inside the broader movement.

“Yes. Well, very quickly, there’s a big debate, and I tend to favor your view,” Hanson said.

He said figures such as Vance and Rubio may retain Trump’s agenda while being more careful about how they attack opponents and how they speak publicly.

“Maybe they’re going to be more judicious in their use of attack vocabulary or profanity, and that might make the mega agenda more conducive to independence and actually grow in popularity,” Hanson said.

At the same time, Hanson acknowledged another argument: that Trump’s confrontational style was necessary because the political system he was challenging had been built over decades.

“There is a minority point of view that Donald Trump is a disruptor, and the more that he screams and yells and tweets at two in the morning, the more that he confuses people and he rams through and he’s a constant combatant, and that’s the only way you break through 60 years of progressive fortification,” Hanson said.

He compared Trump to a cannonball, while describing Vance and Rubio as more nuanced.

“He’s kind of like a cannonball, and they’re sort of very much more nuanced in the way they do, and it’s going to be very interesting to see this,” Hanson said.

Hanson suggested Trump himself might benefit from adjusting his rhetoric without changing his political instincts.

“I think that maybe if Donald Trump would change his language a little bit-not his attitude, but his language-and that it might be more advantageous to him,” Hanson said.

He cautioned that the question remains unresolved.

“But we’ll see. I’ve been wrong before,” Hanson said.

Hanson said Vance and Rubio appear to believe that communication style is inseparable from political substance.

“But they definitely have the view that how you speak and what you say and where you say it and against whom you attack is very intertwined with the message and it can enhance or argue track from the agenda,” Hanson said.

Trump, by contrast, has relied on a more direct approach.

“Whereas Trump says the agenda is the only way is to blast ahead,” Hanson said.

He closed with a military comparison that captured the difference he sees between Trump and the next generation of figures around him.

“He’s George Patton, in other words, and the other guys were George Marshall.”

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