GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution

GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution

In uncertain times what’s needed is not just clarity about today’s pandemic, but insight into the challenges that lie ahead as America recovers and returns to normal. GoodFellows, a weekly Hoover Institution broadcast, features senior fellows John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, and H.R. McMaster discussing the social, economic, and geostrategic ramifications of this changed world.

Episodes

April 29, 2025 63 mins

Rejected by voters last November, the Democratic Party is perhaps afforded new life given President Trump’s decline in popularity and economic uncertainty ahead. What is the party’s message? 

Rep. Ro Khanna, a prominent progressive voice whose California district includes parts of Silicon Valley, joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster to discuss tariffs and the use of executive power, “blue sta...

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What are the economic and geopolitical effects of President Trump's imposition of tariffs on America's trading friends and foes? In an episode devoted solely to viewers' questions, Hoover senior fellows Sir Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster delve into the certain volatility (and uncertain logic) of Trump's tariff maneuvers, what the future holds for the European Union, institutional decline within the U.S., ...

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Does America have a plan for winning the competition of the future—mastering artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and space, plus other material and developmental sciences? Amy Zegart, the Hoover Institution’s Morris Arnold and Nona Cox Senior Fellow and cochair of the Stanford Emerging Technology Review (SETR), explains how this one-of-a-kind partnership between the Hoover Institution and Stanford University’s School of Enginee...

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US and Ukrainian officials will meet on March 12 to talk peace in Eastern Europe; a new US approach to China may or may not be in the works; and the Trump administration’s gas-brake approach to imposing tariffs on trade partners has a Hoover economist baffled. 

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and author of Seven Things You Can’t Say About China, joins Hoover senior fellows John Cochrane and H...

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A one-week window into the Trump administration’s worldview—the president blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion; his vice president taking to social media to accuse a Hoover scholar of “historical illiteracy”; the US then refusing to join other UN members in condemning Russian aggression—raises the question: Is the Trump brand of confusion and controversy mere happenstance or a calculated means to an end? 

American Enterprise Insti...

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Three weeks into the nascent Trump presidency, the question of “power” arises: how the leader of the free world uses unique words, deeds, and threats to advance America’s interests globally, through a blend of grandiose promises (rebuilding Gaza), economic saber-rattling (tariffs on imported goods), and a “vibe shift” (woke bureaucracy under attack). Hoover Kleinheinz Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin joins GoodFellows regulars Niall Fe...

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A week into Donald Trump’s “second first term,” the GoodFellows drink from the proverbial fire hose trying to keep up with the news: a flurry of presidential executive orders; a freezing of US foreign aid; policy spats with multiple nations; at Davos, the world’s globalists contending with MAGA; a Chinese advancement in artificial intelligence that prompted a market selloff and evokes memories of the Cold War’s space race.

Hoover s...

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Donald Trump’s “second first term”—an oddity of winning nonconsecutive presidential elections—begins with talk of dramatic policy shifts at home and abroad. 

Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson and “Trump 45” veteran H.R. McMaster discuss the odds of a successful second Trump presidency; whether the man himself has changed; the most salient questions to ask Pentagon and State Department secretary-designates; whether Elon Musk’s go...

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An eventful election year concludes with the curtain soon to rise on a second Trump presidency and the possibility of dramatic changes to how Washington conducts itself.

Kimberley Strassel, the Wall Street Journal’s “Potomac Watch” columnist, joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster for a temperature check on Trump’s comeback: the odds of his ending lawfare and weeding out recalcitrant bureaucra...

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In a special “mailbag” episode, Hoover senior fellows Sir Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster answer audience questions ranging from current geopolitics quandaries and viable economic models to career and parenting advice, plus their personal choices of dream guests.

Among the topics: a neglected African continent; Russia’s military and economic sustainability and related policy options that the incoming Trump administ...

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After a “change” election that returned Donald Trump to the presidency, what can Americans expect in the way of foreign policy and national security departures from the current administration?

Former US secretary of state and CIA director Mike Pompeo joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster to discuss possible new directions for America’s national security apparatus. Also discussed: the Biden adm...

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Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office in a manner few saw coming – he won America’s popular vote; his coattails may lead to Republican control of Congress – while progressive institutions (legacy media, Hollywood, wokeism, and a tired Democratic playbook) take a beating.

New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster to discuss an American election t...

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Imagine an alternate universe in which the American Revolution fails or where Russia rejects Leninism in its infant stage.

Live from the Hoover Institution’s Fall Retreat, Lord Andrew Roberts, renowned historian and the Hoover Institution’s Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting Fellow, joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster to discuss various historical counterfactuals, including Brit...

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Why has Israel repeatedly disregarded and gone the opposite way from the White House’s entreaties regarding the Middle East? And does the West fully fathom that Ukraine is losing its war of attrition with Russia?

Walter Russell Mead, “Global View” columnist for the Wall Street Journal, joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster to discuss the latest developments in those two combat theaters. Next, ...

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Hot-wiring pagers and walkie-talkies to take out Hezbollah operatives: Was Israel’s tactic—like something from an Ian Fleming novel—a justifiable act of national security or a violation of international law?

Victor Davis Hanson, the Hoover Institution’s Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow and a military historian and classicist, joins GoodFellows regulars John Cochrane and H.R. McMaster to discuss the latest in the Middle East,...

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What was it like to navigate America’s national security apparatus all the while coping with a mercurial commander-in-chief? Hoover senior fellow H.R. McMaster tells all in his new best-seller At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the White House – with additional insights provided by Hoover senior fellow Niall Ferguson, whose forthcoming biography of Henry Kissinger likewise will touch on national security and White House intr...

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In a topsy-turvy election year, does America’s 2024 presidential contest summon ghosts from 1968 — or, is a late-breaking 1980-style landslide in the cards? Historian Niall Ferguson, the Hoover Institution’s Milbank Family Senior Fellow, appears solo on this “mini” edition of GoodFellows (or is it GoodFellow?) to discuss the current political landscape, what roles an aging electorate and the “gender gap” will play in America’s elec...

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John Cochrane, the Hoover Institution’s Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow and the author of The Fiscal Theory of Price Level (2023), discusses misconceptions around how the Federal Reserve goes about its business; why economic policy factors into the great-power competition with China; his fascination with Calvin Coolidge; plus why (in John’s opinion) Portuguese Water Dogs are the kings of all canines.

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In a special mini version of GoodFellows (just one wise man, not the usual three), Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the Hoover Institution’s Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow and author of the soon-to-be-released At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, discusses a possible sea change in American foreign policy and the view from other world capitals. On the 40th anniversary of his commissioning as a US Army seco...

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Is a regional war across the Middle East about to erupt? And what to make of a Venezuelan regime that doesn’t honor election results? Matthew Kroenig, Vice President and Senior Director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and coauthor of the book We Win They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War, joins Hoover senior fellows John Cochrane and H.R. McMaster to discuss lessons from deter...

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