California Dreaming with Rick Caruso | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution - GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution

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>> Rick Caruso (00:00):
Career politicians have making excuses down to a fart and
trying to explain why there wasn't water.
Nobody wants to excuse why they losttheir home, why they lost their business.
The reality is they were not prepared.
The reality is we all gotthe warnings of disastrous,

(00:21):
catastrophic winds that couldkill people that were issued.
And the preparation just wasn't right.
It wasn't enough.
And this malarkey about fire hydrantsare intended for homes and not for
wildfires like this.
My God, what an excuse to make.
And this is a region thathas a history of fires.

(00:42):
So it wasn't breaking newsthat there may be a fire here.
And because of the negligenceof our government leaders and
our government officials,we have the Santa Monica Mountains.
The density of that brush wasfuel just waiting to explode.
And that's when it did.
[MUSIC]

>> Bill Whalen (01:03):
It's Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025.
And welcome back to Goodfellows, a HooverInstitution broadcast examining social,
economic, political andgeopolitical concerns.
I'm Bill Whalen.
I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellowand I'll be your moderator today.
I have good news to report.
We have a full complement ofgood fellows in the House.
That includes, of course,the historian Sir Niall Ferguson,
economist John Cochrane, and formerpresidential national security advisor,

(01:25):
geostrategist, bestselling author,Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.
Gentlemen, good to see you.
I hope your summers are going well.
So we have two topics to address today.
We're going to talk aboutthe war in Ukraine,
which has now reached its 41 month mark,incredibly enough.
But first, we're going to talk aboutthe state of big cities in America.
I know something John Cochrane isparticularly willing to get into, but

(01:48):
gets into all interestingquestions about despondency and
really how to run a city and so forth.
And joining us forthe conversation is Rick Caruso.
Rick Caruso is the founder andexecutive chairman of Caruso,
one of the largest privately held realestate companies in the United States.
In 2022, Mr. Caruso was the runner upin Los Angeles's mayoral election.
Rumor has he may run again.
Maybe he'll share his plans with us.

(02:09):
We can ask, butwe thought he'd be the ideal guest today.
He sheds some light on what'sgoing on in America's big cities,
choices voters are making, plusthe question of how to end such chronic
dysfunctions, homelessness,bad outcomes in public education, and
in the case of Rick Caruso'sbeloved Los Angeles,
his city's terrible responseto wildfires early this year.
Rick Caruso, welcome to Goodfellows.

Well, thank you for having me.
Appreciate it.

One thing I forgot to mention in the introduction is that you
count among your neighbors one H.R.McMaster.
So I have to ask you, as somebody whoknows real estate better than all of us
combined, when a rapscallion like H.R.
McMaster moves into the neighborhood,what happens to property value?

Massive increase in property values.
Tina and I have benefited mightily fromhe and Katie living next to us and
the family.
So we've refinanced our house five times.

>> H.R McMaster (02:58):
Hey Rick, great to see you.
Great.Thanks for being with us.

Good seeing each side now.
He's one of the all time great family,great neighbors.
We miss him though,we gotta get you back down there.

So Rick, I have to ask you, since I'm an aging boomer,
I recall an America in which America'sbig city mayors were, shall we say,
rough cut customers, a blue collar appeal,tough on crime, no nonsense.
I'm thinking about Richard Daly andJohn Cochrane's beloved Chicago,
Frank Rizzo and HR's beloved Philadelphia.
I wonder if Niall,if London's had any characters like this.

(03:30):
But the times have changed andso have the mayors.
Your city, Los Angeles is run by KarenBass, who is a former community organizer.
John, Chicago is now run by also a formercommunity organizer by way of the local
teachers union and New York City, one ofthe most important cities in the world.
We would agree it is onthe verge of electing a 33 year
old socialist who believes in suchthings as government run grocery stores,

(03:54):
free bus service to all rent freezes.
And he recently said I meet the press andI quote,
I don't believe we shouldhave billionaires.
So Rick Caruso,is this the way of the future for America?

Well, I don't think it's the way of the future for America, but
obviously there has been a sympathetictone by many of the voters and
these people are resonating.
What you're seeing in New York,it's resonating for a reason.
And it's resonating becauseof the state of New York and
the high cost of living in New York.
But it's also because ofwho he's running against,

(04:27):
which we have to be very cognizant of.
And so, New Yorkers are looking fora change.
And this gentleman represents change.
Now I will tell you that I don'tthink any of these big cities,
whether It's San Francisco, LA or
Chicago have gotten into troublebecause of one mayor alone.
There's been a bit of a history ofelecting people not on competence but

(04:50):
on ideology.
And I'm hoping that we've hita turning point in that we see it in
San Francisco with Dan Lurie.
He's doing a lot of good things.
The city is reallystarting to turn around.
Obviously a lot more needs to be done.
I think LA is a little bit behindSan Francisco in that regard.
But you know, a lot of people havecommented to me that people went to

(05:13):
sleep on January 6 as a Liberal and
woke up as a conservative onJanuary 7th when the fire started.
It really was a big wake up call and
an alarm that competencedoes matter in leadership.
So I'm hoping that there's that sortof catches on across the country.
We'll see.

Okay, John, have at.

>> John Cochrane (05:34):
Well, I mean, let's just start with the political.
You mentioned voters, but of course,
who's winning here is a coalitionof people with luxury beliefs and
some unions andother organizations feeding at the trough,
actual, poor people incities want better schools.

(05:54):
They want the cops to come, not to defundthe police, they want actual services.
So I hope competence can also reach forthem as well.
But there's a list of prioritiesamid the dysfunction.
I know rebuilding is big on your agenda,which raises the question of
the horrendous zoning andother impediments to building in cities.

(06:17):
Why is the cost of housing so high?
It's about supply,which I'm glad to see that the,
the YIMBYs on the leftare finally discovering.
But then the schoolsare a catastrophe again,
particularly hurting the leastdisadvantage, crime and bad behavior.
Homelessness, which isn'tabout homelessness,
it's about people'sbehavior in public spaces.

(06:37):
Where do you start?

I can chime in on that, though.
I agree with all of that, John, but
every one of those issues that you talkedabout can be tackled and are solvable.

Yeah.

The underpinning of this though is that for a long,
long time there has been a very vocal,whether it's a minority or
not, of people have gone to voteto push an ideology because of
a frustration that they're seeing,whatever that case may be.
We saw it over the last couple of yearswith the protest going on on college

(07:13):
campuses.
Most of those people had no ideawhat they were protesting about,
but they were protesting against a systemthat they felt was oppressing them.
And I think this is whatwe're seeing in New York.
What's wild about New York,when you look at the polling,
the majority of the voters that cameout who are black are supporting them.
The majority of the youngpeople are supporting them.

(07:33):
The majority of the Jewishcommunity is supporting them.
And so, that's just wild to think about,given what he's talking about.
And so what I do really hope is thatthe majority of people who are in
the middle who want really commonsense kind of solutions to crime and

(07:55):
homelessness and all of the things,schools, whatever the case may be.
Actually get out and vote because that'swhat's going to change the system,
in my opinion.

Well, you need, and you also mentioned a good alternative and
this was, what happened in New York waskind of a chaos of a one party city and
a very poor candidate asthe alternative in Cuomo and so
very telegenic,extreme person can win that primary and
then boy Republican in New York,good luck winning the general election.

That's right, that's right.

>> Niall Ferguson (08:30):
Rick, can I ask a question?
You mentioned Dan Lurie andI must say I begun to despair of
San Francisco's future andit's the city nearest to us at Hoover.
But I'm pretty impressed at what'shappened since his election and
I wondered what your take was.
In a way he's the kind of moderatecentrist Democrat coming in to clean

(08:53):
up the mess the progressives have made.
Is that what LA needs or do you thinkLA needs something more radical?

No, I don't think it needs a more radical.
I always think, and I think Danis doing a really good job, it,
it goes back to my theory,whether or not it's accurate or not.
But I think Dan's proving it out.
It's like when you're on a ship and
you change the direction byone degree over a distance.
It's a dramatic change and, and Dan hasreally taken some relatively small steps,

(09:26):
but he's moving the needle andhe's creating this flywheel that's
starting to catch momentum andbringing people back in.
Now one of the great advantages that Danhas that I don't think we have in LA is
that he's got an industry,the tech industry,
that's going to helprepopulate that downtown.

(09:47):
We don't have that business in ourdowntown to really be driving that.
Here's the scary part about downtown LA.
We have almost a 40% vacancyrate in downtown LA now.
And it's not about back to work rulesbecause Century city, which is 30
minutes away, is about 100% lease withthe highest rents in the country.

(10:10):
And that's because it's clean, it's safe.
All of these kind of things thatare just basic things that you need in
order to bring, bring people back to work.
But I think Dan is makingsome good changes.
He's got some big challenges.
I talked to Dan, like la,
he's got a billion dollar deficitthat he's got to figure out.
He's got a complicated governancestructure with the county and

(10:31):
the city being together.
But nonetheless he's bringing back A lotof optimism and that's really critical
that people are starting to say,I think this is going to work.
Let's go back and take a look at SanFrancisco for headquarters, for retail,
for opening up a restaurant, etc.
So I'm optimistic that we can do the samething in LA with a moderate common sense.

(10:53):
I don't care if you're a Democrat oran independent, whatever the case is, but
somebody who has some experience andcompetence and
is going to make some toughchoices to move the needle.

Hey Rick, you know, you mentioned the critical role of
the private sector ininvigorating urban areas.
You mentioned also how the fireskind of alerted everybody to
the gross incompetenceof city leadership and
policies, as you mentioned,over multiple administrations.
Would you mind summarizing forour listeners?

(11:26):
I know you've done this in the pastwhat the wildfires exposed, but
then also how you're galvanizingthe private sector to rebuild a community.
Because this is what's beenstriking to me is, Kai,
you've been driven not just to rebuild,right?
But to rebuild a sense of community.

Well, thanks for the question.
What it exposed at every levelin the city is the incompetence,
starting with the mayornot being prepared,
not having a plan,having the bad judgment to lead town.
And as recently of last week repeated thatshe did not know that these extreme winds

(12:09):
were coming, which is an impossibilitygiven the amount of warnings
that came on everybody's iPhone, thatthey were catastrophic, quote, unquote,
catastrophic, life threatening winds.
And she also repeated when asked ona podcast why the fire department
wasn't pre deployed, she said it's quote,unquote, a mystery to her.

(12:32):
So that just shows the level ofdisengagement and incompetence.
But as we all know, andas you know, in your roles,
everything starts from the top.
Then you have a head of Department ofWater and Power that had the terrible
decision to leave the main tank empty,7 million gallons of water.
So when we got word that mydaughter's house was on fire,

(12:54):
we were also told the reason it's on fireis because the firefighters had no water
in the hydrants and they can't putout the homes in that neighborhood,
which in today's world just seems likean impossibility when I got that call.
So the leadership failed,the people that she had appointed in
key positions were not competent andthe system failed.

(13:17):
And there obviously was not a plan to dealwith this fire because it could have been
Put out very quickly.
Had there been pre deployment, therehad been a fire there two weeks before.
They know the risk.
Everybody knows the risk.
When the Santa Ana winds come up andwe were all warned of the risk,
we were prepared.
So we had the same warnings.
We had a private fire department thatwas immediately put on site two days

(13:40):
ahead of time.
Our own water tankers and retardant.
And not only did we save our property,but we saved the whole block around us.
So what's remaining in the Palisadesis literally the area that we were able
to save.
And we started loaning equipmentto the fire department.

(14:00):
And if you go back some years, HR andI talked about this in the campaign,
I posted about it.
The fire department has been sounderfunded for so long by the mayors and
the city that they had a whole graveyardof equipment mothballed because they
didn't have the moneyto have them operating.
I mean,it was just sin after sin after sin.

(14:23):
So what I did, this devastation betweenAltadena, Malibu and the Palisades.
And if you haven't seenit with your own eyes,
you really need to becausepictures don't do it justice.
It's the size of two Manhattanscompletely burned to the ground.
Pacific Palisades alone is 300,000acres that's been burned to the ground.

(14:45):
Schools, synagogues, parks, homes.
Same In Altadena,about 700 homes in Malibu.
So I put together a groupcalled Steadfast LA.
It's a non profit and I called uponpeople who are the best in their
industries to join a board andto give their time and their talent.

(15:06):
And the goal is to support the city,the county, the state, take problems,
put the team around the problem, solve theproblems and deliver a package to the city
and the county and the state that they canemploy to move things along, do it with
urgency, do it with innovation, and doit at no cost to the city or the county.
So we're absorbing all the costs andwe've been very successful.

(15:30):
It's been great.
Because what we know from past disastersis these things are too big for
any government alone to handle,
even if you had a governmentthat was highly efficient.
So we're pushing on this.
We've got a team of people at Steadfastthat are dedicated full time.
We're rebuilding parks,we're helping rebuild the schools.
We developed an AI model to plan checkpeople's homes in a matter of hours

(15:54):
rather than months.
That it was taking the city and the countyand we're starting to do the same thing.
As my goal has been to create thisflywheel that you start getting this
energy behind it.
Because the one thing all of these peopleneed is hope that their community is
going to come back.
And I think the city andthe county more than anything needs to

(16:16):
have this culture andthis attitude that says, we are with you.
We are going to be a good servantof the people, stand behind you.
We want you to come back.
We know that takes time and money,and we're going to have your back.
We got your back, folks.
And that's the kind of messagingI think we need to see.

(16:36):
And we need to get more people rebuilding,which I think we will.

And for the rest of the city, too.
You're rebuilding the Palisades.
And once you got your AI plan checking,
maybe we could AI plan check everybodyelse around the city who wants to rebuild.
The city's [CROSSTALK] Is basicallyto say no, [LAUGH] To say,
here's all the obstacles.
No, you can't build this.
No, you can't build that.
How about a city that says yes fora change?
It's interesting becauseit's not something new.

(17:03):
It's just basic competence.
It stops shooting yourself in the foot.

Of course, John, and
our motto at Steadfast is we're goingto work with the elected officials.
We're going to work aroundthe elected officials, or
we're going to work throughthe elected officials.
But we're going, andif you want to come with us, great.
And I've lifted the old Dick Reardonline when he was mayor.
Ask for forgiveness and not permission.
And we're doing a lot of that.

(17:29):
But I gotta tell you something,the energy is contagious and
we're planning on reopeningour village next year.
The amount of restaurants and retailersthat want to come back is inspiring.
People want to be part of a storythat says good is going to happen and
it can happen.
And I'm just really grateful thatI'm living in that moment that we

(17:51):
can be part of that.

Rick, you mentioned Reardan and
I know Dan Lurie mentionsMike Bloomberg as a kind of role model.
It's good to be reminded that it's notthat long ago that cities were well run.
We don't have to go asback as Bill did earlier.
Do you have a role model, somebody youthink of as the kind of model mayor?

I served for three under three mayors.
I served under Tom Bradleywhen I was in my 20s.
I served under Dick Reardon andI served under Jim Hahn.
I Saw three different leaders,and all of them were exceptional.
And I love Dick Reardon.
He was also a very close personal friend.
But I want to tell you, the unsung herothat I learned a lot from was Jim Hahn.

(18:34):
He wanted me to be, which I accepted,the president of Police Commission.
And when I was the commissioner,police commissioner in LA,
I had a very difficult jobof having to fire a very,
very popular black chief of police, BernieParks, because he was not doing his job.
And crime was skyrocketing,
obviously very popular in the blackcommunity and around the city.

(18:58):
And then what did I do?
I went and hired a guy that wasn't fromLAPD and wasn't from Los Angeles, this
guy named Bill Bratton, who, with thisfunny accent, and it was like sacrilege.
And I called Jim Hahn and I said, Jim,
this is what I'm going to do becauseit's the right thing for the city.
And Jim, to his credit, said,just do the right thing.

(19:21):
And the message there was, don't worryabout getting reelected or reappointed.
And if you don't worry aboutgetting reelected or reappointed,
you can really make a difference.
And that's what we've got to bring back.
And Jim supported my decision and
then lost his reelection becausethe black community turned against him.
And that's whenAntonio Villarrigosa became mayor.

(19:44):
And in my opinion,the downhill slide started in LA.

Speaking of Mr.
Villaragoza, he is thinkingabout running for governor.
So if you don't mind me askingyou a personal question,
why are you concentrating on Los Angeleswhen there is a larger dysfunctional thing
called the State of Californiathat sorely needs leadership?

I'm looking at both.
I mean, I am looking at both.

We made news.

I'm spending a lot of time up in Northern California and
enjoying that,meeting a lot of great people up there.
And listen,California's got a lot of real challenges.
There's no doubt about it.
And again, I believe fixable.
And I'm going to make a decision atsome point, at the end of summer and
decide if I'm going tofocus on a mayor's race and

(20:28):
try to help the city I love,help the state I love or remain a.
A private citizen.
But I am optimistic.
I mean,California should be leading this country.
It has the ability to do it.
We've got the most talented people,the greatest educators,
some of the greatestuniversities in the world.
I mean, you go on and on and on.

(20:49):
And in spite of the way it's been runwith the fourth largest economy in the.
In the world.
But we also have some ofthe highest poverty in the world.

Right. >> Rick Caruso
of homelessness in the world.
I mean, we've got some things that wecan't be proud of that we gotta fix.
So I'm looking at both.
I'm gonna consult HR andhe'll tell me the right thing to do.

Yeah, well, I'm just grateful for yours and
your family's willingness to serve.
Right.I mean,
Rick, could you maybe share with us howyou thought about it before you ran?
Because it's a gauntlet, right?
And people are vicious.
You've got the advent of social media and
how that has become created evena more vitriolic discourse.
But, from my perspective,I think you transcended it.

(21:31):
So maybe will you talk about whatmotivated you and your family to serve?
But then also the approachyou took during the campaign.
I think for our viewers,
they ought to check out the debateyou had with Karen Bass.

>> Karen Bass (21:43):
I'm not doing political stuff.
You know, what if people are dyingon our streets and it is necessary.
I might do that because it wasa model of civility, you know, and.

And so you ran in a way where you didn't get dragged down into it.
You transcended it.

I thought, well that's probably.
That's probably the way I was raised.
I can give my parents andmy grandparents credit for
all of those kind of things, but.
And I appreciate that, HR Listen,I ran for a very simple reason.
I raised my family in LA.
I built my business in LA.
LA gave me everything.
You know, I posted a couple of days ago,there was a little bit story about my

(22:23):
grandfather being an immigrant fromItaly and landing in Boyle Heights, and
as a young kid,going on rounds with him around the city.
He was the gardener.
And it really developed my love forthe city and also my love for plants and
everything else.
But the frustration that Ihad that led me to run is
that I know you can solvethe homeless problem.

(22:46):
I know you can solve the crime problem.
I did many of these things whenI served for three mayors, and
I saw great movement being done where thiscity was really growing in a magical way.
And I also saw it slide back, andI didn't want that to happen again.
We're seeing it in Los Angeles here.
I mean, the crime is reallya problem in Los Angeles.

(23:08):
A buddy of mine this morning called me.
Hancock park, actually,right near the mayor's residence.
Someone got beat up this morning.
Just going for a walk.
This is a very wealthy, nice community.
The police never showed up.
The police department iscompletely stretched to the limit.
So that was my fuel and my concernwas exposing the family to that.

(23:33):
How would all that play out?
And the safety of the family.
And HR knows the family, God love them.
I mean, they all stepped up andthey got on the streets and
they campaigned with me.
And we were going into neighborhoods and
talking to people that had been longforgotten by the leadership of the city.
And people were hugging the kids andhugging my wife.

(23:56):
And I would tell themthat hug represents hope.
Were giving people hope.
And it was the most rewardingexperience of my life.
I didn't, I didn't like the way it ended,but the journey was fantastic.
And I think the advantage that I had andif I ran again, I would have.

(24:16):
I'm not looking for a career.
I am literally looking to just come in,help make some changes and step back.
And it may be a four year stint.
I don't even think about doing it foreight years.
And listen, I hope that there isan opportunity that plays out for
me because how lucky isthat that you can lean in,

(24:39):
help a whole bunch of people, andthen go back to your private life and
feel good that you made a bit ofa difference in your community.

Can I raise one quick question,
which is almost a psychoanalysis question?
You've brought up the possibilityof a run for governor.
I look at Gavin News and I see a mandriven by immense political ambition.
But why, if you're as ambitious as him,
would you make such an epicmess of being governor?

(25:09):
How can you explain this disconnect?
It seems like if you wanted to do as muchpossible as to make yourself unelectable
in all the other states,
you couldn't really do morethan he's done in California.
I can't understand what wouldlead to these decisions and
the mistakes that have created allthe problems we know about in California.

(25:30):
Can you explain it to me?
Because it's a puzzle.

[LAUGH] I'm not sure I could explain that one to you,
I could explain it in general.
This is what I think.
In general, people are tooworried about getting reelected.
And so when he looks at his base orany elected official looks at their base,
they, they're tryingto satisfy their base.
I mean, it happens on the right,it happens on the left.
You see it both.
I'm hoping, quite frankly, that people aretired of extremes both on the right and

(25:56):
the left.
And let's get back to the middle.
It's sort of like being ina football field stand on the 50 and
be able to reach out to the 30 yard lineon each side and bring people together.
And I think the great leaders thatwe've seen have done that, but
that takes courage.
Because you know what,you might not get reelected.
And God forbid for most of these people,they might have to get a real job.

(26:23):
Most of them have never,they've never signed the front of a check.
They've only signed the back of a check.

But it's not just about the middle and policy and reaching out and
common sense.
You have to fight some extraordinarilyentrenched interests who
benefit off the current dysfunction.
You want to clean up real estate?
Well, there's a whole zoning code.
You can't just say, go, build.
You have the zoning, the planning office.
You had all the NIMBYforces that want to use

(26:52):
the existing laws to stopanything from happening.
You want to clean up the schools,you know, well, it's been shown that it's
fairly straightforward to do, but you gota whole teacher's union who is, you know,
legally enshrined in many ways to stopyou from doing what you want to do.
And that's just two of a hundred examples.

(27:15):
So how do you fight againstthe very strong interests and
the legal system they havea hold of that are there to stop
the kind of things you wantto do to make it better?

It's very tough.
It's a tough job, butit's a job worth doing.
And that's what leadership is all about.
I mean, any of you given an assignment,they're going to be tough assignments.
That's why you're all well renowned andsuccessful.
If you took easy assignments,nobody would know who you are.
And I think that's what's motivating,
is figuring out how to break thisapart and put it back together.

(27:52):
And I've had fun in my life doing that.
The assignment of rebuilding LAPD,everybody said it couldn't be done.
We got crime down to levelsnot seen since 1950.
We just completely changedthe rules of the road for lapd.
You look at what I did at usc, we werein the worst mess in the history of that

(28:12):
university because ofthe leadership problems.
Completely changedthe governance structure.
So it can be done.
Is it easy to do?
No, it's not easy to do.
But, my God, when you get through it,it's incredibly rewarding.
But you've got to be able to compromise.
You gotta be able to negotiate,you gotta be fair, you gotta be practical.

(28:33):
But you've got to be setting a goal and
getting everybody to sort of walkwith you down that road together.
So I think it's doable, John, I really do.
Otherwise, if it's not doable,you just get to close up these cities.
They're going to implode on themselves.

We're running out of time.
But I would like to ask you onequestion before we go, Rick,
going back to my premiseis an aging boomer.
I remember the world came toLos Angeles in the summer of 1984.
And, boy, did Peter Uberath andcompany put on a great show.
The question to you, sir, is this, theSummer Olympics kick off in LA on July 14,
2028.
We're now within three years of that.

(29:06):
How confident are you that Los Angelesis going to pull this off?

Not very.

Why? >> Rick Caruso
There's a gentleman named Rick Cole whojust retired from the controller's office.
You should take a look on YouTube andfind his parting sort of farewell speech.
Okay, can I read you a quote from that?
He said, I've never been more alarmedabout the future of Los Angeles.
The problem of Los Angeles governmentin the public sector in California is

(29:33):
an aversion to innovation.

Yep, and Rick was so true on that, and his other line was, we can't
figure out how to repair sidewalks, howare we gonna be ready for the Olympics?

Right. >> Rick Caruso
a massive effort.
I think it can be done.
I'm not sure that the leadershipwe currently have today is going
to be able to pull it off.
I'm worried about it.
Okay.
Hate to end on a sad note, but Rick Russo,we do appreciate your time today and
hope to have you back on the show and keepus informed on what you ultimately decide.

I love it.
Thank you for having me.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you.

Thanks so much.

This week marks a solemn occasion.
41 months since Russian forcesrolled into Ukraine and
began the bloodiest war of this century.
A war that some people thought might lastmaybe 41 days at most, not 41 months.
Let's talk about where the war stands and
if there is such a thing asan off ramp and a road to peace.
Sir Niall, I turn to you.
Vladimir Putin is now on the clock.

(30:28):
He has until September 2nd to reactto Donald Trump's ultimatum of accept
a peace deal or receive what Trump calls,quote, very severe tariffs.
Is this how you get Putin to the table?

No, it's not.
Part of the problem is thatPresident Trump's deadlines,
as we see in the trade negotiationsgenerally, are somewhat fluid.
But the main problem is that he's notapplying the kind of pressure that
might seriously changePresident Putin's calculus.
Look, I defer to HR inall military matters, but

(31:03):
I spend a lot of time trying tokeep informed about this war.
The Russians are grinding out victory.
That's the harsh reality.
Despite the extraordinary bravery andcreativity of the Ukrainians, it's a very,
very long front they're defending.
They're stretched very thin.
And Russia has stepped upits air attacks on Ukrainian

(31:27):
civilians to an unprecedentedlevel in recent weeks.
And it's more than the Ukrainianair defences can keep out,
because the Trump administration hasblown hot and cold about this war,
periodically veering in the directionof essentially giving Russia what it

(31:47):
said it wanted, and then at times veeringin the other direction and scolding Putin.
That has, I think, created an uncertaintyabout the U.S. commitment.
And although the Europeans, in responseto pressure from President Trump have
stepped up their military spendingin a really quite impressive way.
It will take a while, too long forthat to turn into the kind of

(32:09):
resources that can take the placeof US support for Ukraine.
So I'm pessimistic.
I think Putin, looking 12 months ahead,
thinks that he's going to be ina stronger position than he is now, and
why should he settle when he ultimatelyseems likely to overwhelm Ukraine?
I'll make one last point, Bill, andI'd love to get HR's thoughts on this.

(32:31):
In all the conversations that I have aboutthis war in Europe as well as in the us,
I'm struck by how few people reallyvisualize the nightmare scenario of
the fall of Kyiv.
They don't think about it.
They don't see the implications.
They talk about the war as if it'sa stalemate, but it's not a stalemate.
I think that's something of an illusion.
It's a very rapidly changing kind of war,but it's not one in an equilibrium.

(32:56):
And the balance of forces very clearlyfavors Russia if the war lasts much more
than six months more.
HR, what do you think?

Hey, well, you know,
I agree with almost everything you said,except I don't think Russia
has the capacity to be ableto sustain an offensive.
I think all they can do iswhat they're doing now,
which is grind it out on the Westernfront, as you mentioned,
they're making gains, but they'remaking gains in extraordinary cost.
And, thinking back to somethingwe spoke about, I think,
a couple of episodes ago, which wasthe Lundorf offensive in 1917 that seemed,

(33:28):
that was going to be successful.
But after the breakthrough,they could not sustain that offensive,
it reached the culminating point.
And even at a period of desperation,with the French army mutiny and
everything else,the tide eventually turned.
It turned with U.S. forces, right?
And that's not going to happen here, but
I think with US arms comingback into the picture.

(33:49):
And it could bolsterthe will of the Ukrainians.
And of course,Ukrainians are continuing to develop,
I think really extraordinary deep strikecapabilities, with or without U.S.
munitions, as we saw inOperation Spider's Web, for example.
So I think that the hope forthe Ukrainians is that Vladimir Putin will
conclude that he can't win and thathe'll begin to realize that he's losing

(34:11):
because he can't sustain50,000 casualties a month.
So I'm heartened bythe president Backing in to this
recognition that Vladimir Putinis intransigent,
that he has objectives that go farbeyond anything that's justifiable,
which has been the case sincethe invasion, but that he's not going

(34:35):
to agree to a ceasefire unlesshe concludes that he can't win.
So I'm hopeful,not maybe about the sanctions, but
about the sustained support of weapons.
The one thing that concerns me and John,I'd love to hear what you think about this
and Nial too, is this kind of adoption ofsome of the Biden administration language

(34:56):
about offensive and defensive weapons andwhat sorts of weapons will be provided,
what may not be provided, because there'sno such thing as an offensive weapon.
I mean, for example, long rangeprecision strike capabilities we've
mentioned many times are critical toair defense because it's important to
kill the archer as wellas shoot down the arrows.
So I'm heartened by the sustained support.

(35:17):
I think it's a great formula forPresident Trump,
who always wants others to pay more.
Remember, President Trump always asksfour questions, what's in it for us?
Why do we care?
Second question is,why do we have to do it?
The third is how much does it cost?
And the fourth is, can we get otherpeople to pay for it or to pay more?
And, and soI think he went through this process.

(35:39):
The Europeans were quite smart about this.
And, and, and so I'm hopeful,
I just hope that they don't try to dowhat the Obama White House, I mean,
I'm sorry, the Biden White House tried todo, which is kind of manage the war and
beat out, you know,weapons in an incremental manner.

We are doing that a little bit, aren't we?
So we're getting, we're allowingthe Europeans to buy them some patriots,
but being worrying about smallamounts of money here, but okay,
those are useful againstballistic missiles.
We're not giving,
letting them have long range weaponsto go after the source of the problem.
Trump said don't, don't bomb Moscow.

(36:20):
It's sort of 50 days in order to sendas many drones as you can to civilian
targets in Ukraine, which is pretty sad.
But on the other hand, I mean, it strikesme of some of the Vietnam War mentality.
I was watching that wonderfulKen Burns documentary on the plane.
Trump just wants us to go away andwithout costing a lot.

(36:40):
And it's not gonna go away,It's gonna sit there and fester.
Some of things I'm reading, though, thingsare not great in Russia Economically,
things aren't great in Russia.
Supply things aren't great in Russia.
I mean, just the meat grinder at the frontis making gains, but small gains.
There's, there's no breakthrough yet.
So it does look like a situation ofwho collapses first and, and situ.

(37:02):
The situation is bad enough on the Russianend that Your World War I analogy may
prove out at much greater cost than needbe if we would get serious about it.
But it may prevent, andI think that's what Ukraine is doing.
Hang in there, lose small amounts ofterritory, keep killing Russian soldiers,
make this a hard cost, andpray that Russia collapses first.

(37:25):
I grant Niall will immediately saythat's a terrible strategy, but
it's what they've got andit's not an impossible one.
So I, I think there would bea way to do it a lot quicker.
I think we all would hope forit to be done a lot quicker, but
I do think it's not that necessary.
And if there were any signof a Russian breakout,
Russia actually making the kind ofadvances it would to take over Kiev,

(37:49):
assuming that, Ukraine doesn't collapse,but that kind of military collapse,
I think all of a sudden the west mightget more, much more serious about it.
So I'm not sure that an invasion tothe point of invading Kyiv the way
the Germans invaded, Paris,I don't think that's going to happen
without at least some rampingup of support on our side.

I think it's important to realize that the chance of
a Russian collapse is vanishingly small.
Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister,told his European counterpart,
we are not going to letRussia lose this war.
And so China's commitment toRussia's war effort continues, and
it doesn't vacillate the way ourcommitment to Ukraine has vacillated.

(38:38):
That's one important difference.
The other important differenceis that Ukraine is a democracy,
Russia is a fascist authoritarian state,
and Ukraine's got its owninternal political problems,
which I think are going to become moreof a headache as the year goes on.
There's been a fairly radicalreshuffle of Zelenskyy's government in

(39:01):
the last few weeks.
But one disturbing sign is thatthe government is taking steps to
shut down the independentanti corruption office.
This is a very bad sign indeed ofthe way things are going in Kyiv.
Now you can understand why there isintense pressure on President Zelenskyy

(39:21):
and those close to him.
It's been a long and painful time.
As Bill said right at the beginning butit doesn't send a good signal, especially
to the United States, where opponentsof support for Ukraine, particularly
amongst Republicans, have constantlyemphasized corruption as a problem.

(39:42):
So I'm concerned that Ukraine's weaknessesare really much greater than Russia's.
And if you talk to Ukrainians,
I'm supposed to be therein a couple of months.
If you talk to them,
they'll admit that the aerialbombardments are having an effect on.
Morale, not that they're goingto cause it to collapse, but

(40:03):
just that it wears people down and thatrecruitment of younger Ukrainians to fight
in the war is extremely difficult andconscription is unpopular.
And, there are no foreign troopsthat are going to come in and
decide this as happened in 1918.
On the contrary, there's just thishuge asymmetry between Ukrainian and

(40:24):
Russian manpower as well asbetween the two political systems.
So I'm, of the three of us,probably the most pessimistic.
But I'll update you when I get backfrom Kyiv, if I get back from Kyiv.

Hey, Niall, let's just,
I just want to pick up on something yousaid, which is the Chinese support.
I think there's an opportunity here to,to weaken Russia from outside in by
going after kind of broadly the axis ofaggressors and stop the fool's errand
of trying to, kind of separate Xi Jinpingand Vladimir Putin and instead,

(40:56):
kind of glue them together because Chinahas some significant problems as well.
Also, I think what's going to happen isthe administration is going to see much
more clearly the connections between Iran,for example, and
Russia with the provision of the shaheddrones and the shahed drone factory,
which Russia just put out on a,on a propaganda film between North Korea,

(41:20):
who was rumored to to be sending30,000 more troops to Russia, I mean,
after already providing some people thinkup to 12 million rounds of artillery and
missiles, and of course,China, which you mentioned,
is underwriting the entire effort.
Niall, what do you think the prospects?
I think they're quite high of seeinga number of secondary sanctions on maybe

(41:43):
Chinese banks, but also seeing more andmore Chinese companies put on
the entities list and then migratingover to treasury sanctions as well.
So I think that,
I think what's going to happen isa greater realization of how the war in
Ukraine is connected to this broadercompetition with the axis of aggressors.

(42:04):
And what do you think the implications ofthat are the implications, if you agree?

Yeah, great question, H.R.
it's clear that there are people inthe administration who understand
very well the need to exert greatereconomic pressure on the axis of
authoritarians than hitherto has beenthe case, not only directly on Russia,
there's certainly much more that could bedone there, but also on Iran and on China.

(42:33):
And I noticed that Secretary of theTreasury Scott Besant was talking about
this just the other day in ways that makeit clear that this is under discussion.
Now there are a couple offlies in the ointment.
One is that there are other parts ofthe administration that just worry about
the price of oil and don't want to doanything that might push that upwards,

(42:56):
because, after all, tariffs have createdenough of an inflationary headache for
the Fed, you don't want a price spikein oil to make matters tougher.
The second fly in the ointmentis that there are, of course,
people in the administration who don'tlike to think of the world in this way.
And I see a more and more open splitbetween those who want to take on

(43:17):
the axis of authoritarians andthose who are, at heart, isolationists and
simply don't want to involve the UnitedStates in any of these conflicts.
And I think that split is interestingbecause it seems to be visible in a whole
range of different areas.
It was there over the bombing of Fordeaux,and
I think it'll come upagain if President Trump.

Does just sale of H40 chips, right to-

Exactly, and
you can see this tension withinthe administration is very striking.
The big player in the axis is China.
And in some ways, the administration'spolicy on China has been tough,
especially in the way thatPresident Trump imposed tariffs.
But now you can see that there are waysin which the Chinese can push back.

(44:02):
They did on rare earth magnetsvery successfully, and
then they managed to secure, or perhaps itwas Jensen Huang of Nvidia who secured it,
this huge concession that getsthe H20 chips into Chinese hands.
So this is a very, very complexlandscape in which geoeconomics is
being waged by the administrationthat has, I think,

(44:26):
some real divisions aboutstrategy going on inside it.

This sounds very dangerous to me [LAUGH] Cuz where we were
really was thinking about Ukraine.
We as a country, as an isolated thing, and
where we're heading issome sort of ceasefire.
Is it a little to the west?
Is it a little to the east?
Who gives up what.
But that's kind of where we're heading,sort of a Korea or Vietnam, like,
division, and then we'll rest andthen go at it again 10 years from now,

(44:53):
which at least is isolated.
Now, what you're saying is that,you know, what we have to do
is go after China with really majorsanctions that really hurt it.
That turns Ukraine into the beginningof the flashpoint of which China says,
great, now's our chance to invade Taiwan,
because they've already spentall the stuff they have.

(45:15):
I mean, turning that intothe larger geopolitical thing,
rather than trying to isolate it aswhere do we draw the lines of a ugly
ceasefire in Ukraine Strikes me as harder.
Iran seems less of an issue,I read this fascinating thing
about how the Israelis hackedinto their banking system and
essentially closed down the entire[LAUGH] Iranian banking system.

(45:36):
Maybe the Israelis could come and work forus a little bit because that was,
that was remarkable.
Iran seems a little bitout of that picture.
But broadening this to a, a,a economic attack on China,
sufficient to tell it to stop supportingRussia seems like the sort of
thing that would haverepercussions down the line.

What I'm talking about Chinese entities that are facilitating
illicit financial flows associatedwith Russia's ghost fleet and
entities that are providingelectronics and
hardware that are sustainingthe war making machine.
They're already supporting, Russia.
I mean, that's already happening de facto.
So I think it's like calling it out.
There have been some really good opensource reporting on this by think tank

(46:20):
C4ISR.
I just think, I think acting on that and
doing it in a way that is formal,like we do it.
I mean, we've never had a U.S.
treasury sanction, challengedeffectively in court, for example.
So it's not just doing this.

So you're walling it off.

Yeah. >> John Cochrane
sanction things that are helping Russia,but we're not attacking you, China,
in a big way that you need to say, well,now's the time to go after Taiwan, okay,
good luck, let me jump in guyswith the next question here.

So Niall has suggested that Putin is more than willing to
fight for another year.
That makes it not a 41 month war,but a 53 month war.
Do you think this war is goingto outlast the Trump presidency,
which by February of 2029, gentlemen,would make it a seven year war?

I don't think it's going to outlast the presidency because I
don't think Ukraine can fight that long.
The question in my mind is whether,as we said, enough pressure can be put on
President Putin to make him accepta really meaningful negotiated settlement.
And remember, he was offered a verysweet deal by President Trump,
which he walked away from.

(47:27):
I think the way this war ends is thatfinally enough pressure is put on Russia
that he comes back andsays, okay, let's do it.
The alternative, I think, is that wepersist with essentially the same strategy
that we had before of givingthe Ukrainians just enough, but
not enough actually to win.
And if we do that, at some point,I fear they will lose the war.

(47:49):
Wars can end suddenly, and
it usually happens when the morale of thearmy defending along front line collapses.
And I don't think we'retaking seriously enough
the danger that that couldhappen if we play the long game.
There's never been a good long game forUkraine.
I stand by my view that we should havetried to end the war in 2022 when they had

(48:09):
the upper hand.
And I think future historians will saythat the Biden administration blundered
terribly when it did not push hard to endthe war when Ukraine still had a shot and
still had some leverage.

John, you were nodding your head.

Yeah, I'm just agreeing with the proposition that it's hard to
forecast worse and suddenly when.
When something you didn'treally see change.
And Niall's right, the morale elementain't great on the Russian side either,
but I just keep going until it stops.

I just don't think we should buy into this myth of Russian
strength.
I mean, I think Russia isprofoundly weak at this moment.
I mean, I think we have to remember backa couple years ago when an ex hot dog
salesman and ex con took over theequivalent of centcom, marched on Moscow
and they were cratering the roadsas he was shooting down aircraft.
So I also think it is possible forUkraine to lose,

(49:01):
but it's impossible for Russia to win.
And the historical analogy Iwould bring up now, Niall,
would be Napoleon inthe Iberian Peninsula.
I don't think they can take it.
Even if there is kind ofa broader security collapse like
you're highlighting as possible.

(49:22):
I don't think Russiacan ever have Ukraine.

Okay, gentlemen, good conversation.
And we'll have to get it on the groundreport from Niall and bring this up again.
We turn now to the lightning round,[SOUND] All right,
gentlemen, I've got a couple items foryou.
Number one, the Wall Street Journal isreporting that Harvard University wants to
create in a quote, a center forconservative scholarship,

(49:47):
possibly modeled onStanford's Hoover Institution.
Niall, you've taught there your thoughts.

They could have done this many years ago.
My understanding is that it was proposedmore than 10 years ago that there should
be a Hoover institution at Harvard.
And the idea was waved away as,quote, too political.
Whereas of course, what the.
The Woke DEI gang weredoing was not political.

(50:13):
I think it's too late.
I think it's too late to do it now.
And I think if it's done now,it will simply be seen as
some kind of fig leaf buying whichHarvard will carry on being Harvard.
So I think it's too late andit should have been done long ago.

John, if they wanted your.
They asked for your advice on how tobuild it, how would you build it?

Well, that's, that's a long answer because of
course how institutions workdepends a lot on the details.
Do they have appointment power or
must people also have holdappointments in other departments?
That's a big question.
Or is it just some sort of centerwith a staff and a website?
Is this where we put all three ofthe conservatives currently at Harvard and

(50:53):
have our little pet conservative place anddon't let them infect anywhere else?
Or is this somehow somethingthat helps to have conservative,
libertarian, free marketthought throughout Harvard?
Simply having a little place where we putthree pet conservatives who are not on
the tenure track but on short termcontracts, that's not very helpful either.

(51:16):
So the devil is in the details here.
And is this part of us serious desireof the institution to reform or
is this part of something that theycan show a few conservative donors and
congressmen and wait forTrump era to pass?
We'll see.

HR Would you dare trade Stanford Cardinal for Harvard Crimson?

Not me.
I mean, hey, but I welcome it, because Ido think there are gaps in the curriculum
that as John's alluded to,that institution like this could fill.
We all know what those are.
It has to do with like political anddiplomatic and military history for
example.
But it's kind of the course on maybeconservative political thought for for

(51:57):
example.
But, so I would welcome it.
But the tables have turned, haven't they?
Because I'm thinking ofwhen Leland Stanford Jr.
Journeyed to Harvard when he wasconsidering founding this university and
to get the advice of the currentpresident of Harvard.
And he said in a really haughty way,
what you'll need is I forget Xmillions of dollars in 200 years.

(52:17):
And not Stanford Jr. Leland Stanford.
Leland Stanford said to him,well, I have the money and
it's not going to take me 200 years.

All right, gentlemen, our next item Hunter Biden,
the former first son of the President ofthe United States, is back in the news.
He recently appeared on a podcast andhe said the following.
And our producer Scott Immigrant'sgonna now wear out his thumb,
thumb hitting the bleep button,but he said, quote.

>> Speaker 7 (52:43):
People are really upset about illegal immigration.
You how do you think yourhotel room gets cleaned?
How do you think youhave food on your table?
Who do you think washes your dishes?
Who do you think does your garden?

Gentlemen.

I think the less that we hear from Hunter Biden,
expletives or not.

The better.

I would add.
This is a place where I wishwe had a serious opposition in
the Democratic Party.
Can they offer us nothing?
But anybody who wants to walk hereacross Central America gets in,
gets free stuff, and gets to stay.
That's not a coherent alternative.
Yes, we need economic migrants, butwe need legal economic migrants.

(53:30):
And that, that position just doesn'tthat does not lead to us ever fixing
this horrendous problem.

HR. >> H.R McMaster
I would just like to seea program that adjusts,
that adjusts the incentives, andtoward, in favor of legal immigration.
I'm just thinking of what if we did open,20 consulates in Latin America and
had a program to issue temporary visas,temporary work visas,

(53:58):
and I think people would line up at thoseconsulates instead of with coyotes, right?
And so I think that long term,there's an opportunity.
Remember, we got prettyclose during the George W.
Bush administration.
I think the 911 happened.
It took kind of the energy out of thatproject toward immigration reform.

(54:22):
But again, yeah, this is kind of,this false dilemmas.
John said that, like,everybody just walks across the border or
you don't have any immigration.
I mean, of course,legal immigration is preferred.

But legal is impossible,
it takes 100 years to get throughthe Coda Line to immigrate.

You have to change it, right, you have to change it.

We need to make it possible.
And I don't care what you do,speak English, pass the citizenship test,
whatever.

There is a legal immigrant on this show.
John, just to remind you.

John, you're not from Mexico or India.

I came from much further away.

All right, gentlemen, our third item.
The Attorney General of the United Statesclaims that the late Jeffrey Epstein did
not have a secret client list promptingthe media to characterize what it calls a,
quote, maga revolt.
I asked the three of you which is biggerMAGA or the man behind Donald Trump?

I think this is a real problem for President Trump.
I've been reading Sam Tannenhouse'sbrilliant new biography of Bill Buckley,
and it's reminded me thaton the American right,
there's always been a fringe whichis addicted to conspiracy theories.
It's a powerful political force, and youantagonize it at your peril, especially if
you're the Republican Party lookingahead to midterms in November next year.

(55:34):
Because a significant portion ofpeople who are Trump voters are deeply
disillusioned that there isn't moretransparency about the Epstein case.
It seems implausiblethat there was no list.
And it is also mysteriousthe circumstances that surrounded
Epstein's death.
So I think this is a bigger and

(55:56):
more serious political problemthan at first meets the eye.

Yeah, I would.
So why is the Trumpadministration not releasing this?
I presume there's somethinga little bit embarrassing, but
not what people's slights of fancy go to.
But when you hide the embarrassing,then people's slights of fancy go.
And that's politically damaging.
It isn't the big one right now,
the investigations showing what wekind of all knew about the invented

(56:24):
Russiagate hoax in the early Trumpadministration is showing that there were
some conspiracy theorists who were quiteright about horrible things going on.
I think that that one kind ofparallels the Epstein case in the.
We're learning about things.
And remember,sometimes conspiracy theorists are right.
It turns out that the COVID didcome from a lab in Wuhan, China.

(56:48):
And I think that gives them moreammunition these days that in quite a few
cases lately that have been right.

There's kind of a difference, though, between that, John,
and like Pizza Gate, you know what I mean?
So I do think there's.

Most of it's crazy, but, you know,
lately they've been right a few times.

By the sword, die by the sword.
Right.So I just think you're seeing the blowback
of demagoguery and trafficking in these,in these conspiracy theories.
Hopefully, it'll be kindof an object lesson for
others who would use conspiracytheories as an expedient,
to gain popular support orto disparage competitors or whatever.

(57:28):
I mean, I just think it's honesty is thebest policy and I think there are a lot of
people who don't believe for a second anyof these conspiracy theories, but it's
become either politically expedient forthem or it's become their business model.
I'm thinking of people likeTucker Carlson, for example.
So, I think hopefully there'san object lesson in this somewhere.

All right, finally, squeeze in one last item.
Forget about the Sex Pistolsat NRK in the UK.
Let's talk about AC in the UK asan air conditioning news report.
Sir Niall Ferguson, that up to half ofthe countries in the UK suffer from
overheating when the mercury rises.
So I put it to you, Sir Niall Ferguson, doyou have air conditioning in your house?

No, I don't.
And that's because it's a very old anddrafty house,
which remains impressivelycool even in a heat wave.
So the key thing is just stick to yourcrumbly old house and you'll be fine.
I noticed that an American celebritywhose name I may mispronounce.

(58:33):
Is it Ellen DeGeneres?

Ellen DeGeneres, yes.

Has made the horrific faux pas of moving to the Cotswolds,
to England.
But instead of livingin a drafty old house,
which is the correct thingto do in the Cotswolds,
she's built a hideous modern monstrosity,doubtless with air conditioning.
That is not how you do it, Ellen.
That's wrong.

I do think this is an important story.
Americans may be surprised to hear thatmost Europeans don't have air conditioning
in part because they killed economicgrowth and they can't afford it.
Their electricity prices are incrediblyhigh, so it's hard to do it.
But in part, there's this shows you thedifference of thinking about climate as
a technical problem versusa great morality play.
We cannot have air conditioning because ofcourse, that's how we got in this trouble.

(59:20):
We must suffer to pay for our climatesins as opposed to air conditioning is
the number one way to adapt to a climate.
Last time I heard about a heat wave in theUK I was driving through Sacramento and
they're heat wave.
Everyone's dying, you know what'll do?
It's 95 degrees out.
It was 105 in Sacramento.
We know how to deal with this.
So the moral versus justlet's adapt to the situation.

(59:45):
And by the way, more Europeans die ofheat waves than Americans die of guns.
So it is kind of interesting that Europeis so involved in this capitalism and
growth is evil thing that they wantto deny themselves air conditioning,
the number one adaptation to highertemperatures in order to pay for

(01:00:08):
their sins rather than, adapt the problem.

>> Niall Ferguson (01:00:11):
It's Southern Europe to which all that applies.
I mean, if you just look at the number ofweeks of really intense heat in England,
it's such a small number that it wouldn'tmake sense to invest in air conditioning
most houses.
So just to take your economicsseriously there for a moment, John,
this is not really an issue for most ofEngland and certainly not for Scotland.

>> Bill Whalen (01:00:29):
HR, I'm gonna cut you off here because we've got a bounce, but
I know what you're thinking.
Europeans should just paddle board andget outside more, right?

>> H.R McMaster (01:00:36):
Absolutely, absolutely, listen to Bjorn Lomborg and his work.

>> Bill Whalen (01:00:41):
All right, gentlemen, we'll leave it there.
Good conversation.
We'll see you again in mid August whenour guest is going to be the one and
only director of the Hoover Institution,Condoleezza Rice.
On behalf of the Goodfellows, Sir NiallFerguson, John Cochrane, Lt Gen. H.R.
McMaster, we hope you enjoyed the show.
Thanks as always for your patronage andwe will see you soon.
Thanks again for watching.

>> Speaker 8 (01:00:59):
Thank you for watching Goodfellows.
If you enjoyed this show andare interested in watching more content
featuring HR McMaster, watchBattlegrounds also available@hoover.org.
[MUSIC]

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California Dreaming with Rick Caruso | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution

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