Drones, Dictators & Debt: India Flirts, Ukraine Fights, Trump Takes on The Fed | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution

Is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s embrace of his Russian and Chinese peers a mere signal of his displeasure with American tariff policy, or the beginning of a deeper geopolitical realignment? Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster discuss the significance of Modi’s summitry with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. This leads into a broader conversation about Ukraine’s durability (with Niall soon to visit Kyiv), as its conflict with Russia becomes a predominantly drone war. Also discussed: the question of power-wielding in Washington—the American president derided as a modern-day fascist for his use of executive authority; the differences between Trump Derangement Syndrome in the past versus the present; the Federal Reserve’s independence (and sprawl); plus the merits of the federal government taking a 10% equity stake in chip manufacturer Intel. Finally, some bad news for our London fans: While the GoodFellows will be gathering in the UK’s capital city, there are no plans for a rooftop concert à la the Beatles atop their Apple Corps building.

Subscribe to GoodFellows for clarity on today’s biggest social, economic, and geostrategic shifts — only on GoodFellows.

Episode Transcript

>> Bill Whalen (00:00):
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(01:11):
It's Thursday, September 4, 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 Fellow,and I'll be your moderator today.
This is the first Goodfellows episode ofthe new academic year here at Stanford.
And I'm pleased to report that all ofour Goodfellas are in attendance today.

(01:31):
That would include, of course,the historian Sir Neil Ferguson.
Hello, Neil.
The economist John Cochran.
And joining us from the Washington D.C.office, the Hoover Institution,
former presidential national securityadvisor, Lt Gen. H.R. McMaster.
Niall, John, and H.R.are all Hoover senior fellows.
So, gentlemen, usually our producer, ScottImmergut, and I kind of offer you a set
menu of what we want to talk about, buttoday we're going to throw it back to you

(01:54):
and let you sort of choose inthe buffet what you want to bring up.
Let's have a freewheeling conversation.
H.R., let's start with you.
I know you want to talk foreign policy.
I read your latest piecein your Substack history.
We don't know where you talk about India'sPrime Minister, Mr. Modi, who you know,
who you've met, who you've talked tobefore, you know that four days after Mr.

(02:14):
Modi received sanctions from the Trumpadministration for buying oil from Russia,
Mr. Modi takes it upon himself togo to China to meet with Putin and
Xi jinping and about 16,17 other countries.
Here's my question, H.R.,when we see what Modi is doing,
this strikes me as maybe kindof high school in this regard.
Is this kind of the classic high schoolmove where you hang out with somebody else

(02:35):
to make your boyfriend jealous,or is this the beginning of
a General Bromance between Mr.Modi, Mr. Putin, and Mr. Xi Jinping?

>> H.R. McMaster (02:42):
Well, actually,
if you look at the long history ofUS-India relations, it's not aberrational,
it's consistent, I think, with whatI described in that piece as India's
schizophrenia between fear of abandonmentand fear of entrapment, right?
The legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement andso forth, and

(03:02):
the long relationship thatIndia's had with Russia.
And that relationship's deeplyrooted within the Indian military.
It was almost wholly reliant on Russianweapons, for example, and of course,
the access to cheap energy.
And so India, I think,feels aggrieved at this point and
feels both abandoned and has thisfear of entrapment at the same time.

(03:25):
And that's driving them kind of away fromus and back into the orbit of Russia,
who India believes it needs tohedge against a hostile China and
a hostile Pakistan andthe China Pakistan relationship,
which is now almost a servile relationshipthat Pakistan has with China,
both nuclear armed, by the way.

(03:47):
And so also India thinks it can buy sometime with this rapprochement with Beijing.
So as I mentioned in the essay, though,I think gravity was in our favor in terms
of India recognizing that its long terminterest lies with free market economies
and representative governments like theirown, and does not lie with this axis of

(04:10):
aggressors, which was on display in termsof displays of power with the parade,
the People's Liberation army parade,commemorating the 80th
anniversary of what they portray asChina's defeat of Japan in World War II.
I mean, the whole, you know, just thewhole warping of history was astounding.
But I think just like,just like the parades in Moscow,

(04:32):
prior to the disastrous Russian invasionof Ukraine, I think that these,
these regimes, they appear strong onthe outside but they've got real problems.
So, Bill, I would just say thatwas my topic to talk about.
Thanks for introducing it.
I mean, it's really the geopoliticaldynamics today associated with reaction to
the Trump administration, butalso the degree to which this axis

(04:54):
of aggressors is actively trying torecruit a sphere of influence, right?
That it can use to countercritical elements of US Power,
including the dollars of the reservecurrency, including US Military power and
Xi Jinping's statements,
I think are really worth reading,as Frank Decoder told us, right?
It's important to read primary sourcescoming from the Chinese Communist Party

(05:15):
and those primary sourcesintegrated degree of hostility.
And that's what President Trump respondedto with that tweet, which kind of,
I got to confess, I kind of loved it.
You know, I thought it was just soDonald Trump, but just calling them out,
like as you're conspiring against us,you know, we see what you're doing.
So anyway, I think what this isgoing to provide is impetus for
President Trump to take a tougher approachto China because he's been really kind of

(05:39):
soft on China, with this,with the H20 exports,
with a bunch of other decisionsin connection with trade,
because he's hoping for the big deal andhe's going to be tougher on Russia.
And you saw with his statements recently.
And again, I think what's in our favor,Bill, and for Neil and for John,
what's in our favor is the intransigenceof these authoritarian leaders.

(05:59):
I think they're going to help convincePresident Trump to in the end have pretty
effective policy approaches toward them.

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (06:07):
HR Can I push back gently?
Because it seems to me that,that what's going on or
what went on in China was, was prettyempty as far as India was concerned.
It was, it was symbolism.
There was no substance to it.
And I, I'm not sure how biga discontinuity we've really seen because

(06:29):
what, what's been striking to me aboutthe Modi approach has been all along
they've been having it both ways.
And I can remember, I think it was two or
more years ago at the Munich SecurityConference, Jay Shankar boasting with
Tony Blinken sitting on the stage abouthow India was so clever that it was able

(06:51):
simultaneously to go to the bricks summitand then Modi could come to Washington.
And a number of Indians said to me,
we don't do non alignment anymore,we're polyamorous.
And they were somewhat, I thought,pushing the envelope with that.
And now they've been found out.

(07:12):
The tariffs gave them a shock.
And I think Modi's really goingto China to do nothing other than
pose because I don't thinkthere's any substance,
there's nothing that he can really dowith Xi Jinping that's meaningful.
So I'm not sure I think there's muchto this or am I missing something that,

(07:33):
that, no, actually, I think.

>> H.R. McMaster (07:35):
That's very sound analysis.
It wasn't that long ago the Chinese,you know, PLA soldiers were
bludgeoning Indian soldiers todeath on the Himalayan frontier.
And it was, it was even more recently thatthey're providing the intelligence, and
the capabilities to the Pakistanis thatallow them, to shoot down Indian aircraft.

(07:55):
So, hey, I, I'm with you on this.
I do think so.
I think that gravity is in favor ofa stronger India-US relationship.
And this was, I think,in large measure posturing in response,
in response to the kindof the 50% tariffs,
right, that have been now levied,or 25% additional tariffs.

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (08:16):
From the moment that President Trump
announced reciprocal tariffs.
I thought the Indians were going to getit in the teeth and the Brazilians, too,
because it would be hard to think ofcountries that are more guilty of
discriminating in their tradepolicies against the US.
So that all makes sense.
And I'm sure John sheds no tears because

(08:36):
those really were deservedreciprocal tariffs.
But I couldn't help noticing, and
this is the other thing I wanted toraise with you, HR, that she and
Putin were overheard conversing abouthow to prolong their lives, right?
With presumably nefariousorgan transplants.

(09:00):
And I have to say,I emitted a hollow laugh at the thought of
these two elderly gentlemen,these autocrats past 70,
desperately thinking of ways toprolong their wretched lives.
I don't know what your take was on that,HR but
it reminded me that neither ofthese people has a succession plan.

>> H.R. McMaster (09:22):
No, I think, I think that's absolutely right.
I think there's an essay in the FinancialTimes maybe about the secession crisis or
the Economist did somethingon it recently, but
I think that's absolutely right.
I don't think either one of them does.
And, Xi Jinping has been verysuccessful in purging the party of
any potential candidatesto be his successor.

(09:46):
And, Vladimir Putin'skind of done the same.
You know, he has people around him likePatchev, others who are fiercely loyal to
him, but I don't think anybodywho can replace him fully.

>> John H. Cochrane (09:56):
Let me just, I have a couple picky comments and
then really a question for HR yes.
That Putin especially,
that his major worry is that he'll die ofold age too soon at 90 rather than 120.
Seems like a rather optimistic assessmentof the dangers facing Vladimir Putin.

(10:17):
You said the Chinese were telling ushistory of China defeating Japan.
Actually, I think what you meant is theCommunists defeated Japan in World War II,
whereas in fact, the Nationalists did.
It did, fair, they helped a lot.
And then the Communists swept in andtook over the country.
So it was even more hilariousrevisionist history.
But that's of course,what dictatorships do.

>> H.R. McMaster (10:38):
And hey, by the way,
Frank Decoder's new book that'll beout soon, I've seen it in manuscript.
It's fantastic.
And it's about the Civil War period and
really lays bare the degree to whichthe Chinese Communist Party was avoiding
fighting the Japanese to husbandtheir power so they could
take over after the Nationalistsare weakened by fighting the Japanese.

>> John H. Cochrane (11:01):
There's a lot of that at the end of Kotkin's last book,
which we'll come back to inour alternative histories.
But there's fascinating stuff therein the beginning of World War II.
Another tiny pick which will be fun.
You said join the free industryduring the free market economies.
Of course it should jointhe free trade economies.

(11:21):
And I wish we were clearerthat we were that.
But that may soon change.
But now to the big question.
You know, I always needle HRon economic statecraft and
how's that working out for you?
Which I will do again.
These 50% tariffs on India seem like,however,
a classic case of the economist framework.
Tariffs bad, distortionary tax.
That's not what it's about.

(11:42):
It was a slap in the face to get youto do something and, maybe open up your
markets or maybe we want you to stopbuying Russia Russian oil and gas.
In the latter, it seems to havebeen spectacularly ineffective.
The Indians know how toplay this game too, and
promptly went off to have a littleparty in China and slap us in the face.

(12:04):
But I gather India has put onthe table zero tariffs as a response.
And if that is true,
I would only pray that the US hasthe wisdom to take the offer.
You got what you wanted.
Now say yes, which is something thatthe administration seems very difficult to
have and in part not just forthe us For India.

(12:24):
The sticking point here was tariffs onIndian agriculture to protect Indian
agriculture.
India's GDP per capita is lessthan a tenth that of the us.
When you're saying protect Indianagriculture, you mean keep people working
the land by hand in miserable poverty foranother generation, where what they
should do is what we did in 1900, gettractors and you guys move to the city and

(12:48):
start working in factories to exportstuff to the US under the zero tariff.
So this would be, getting rid of thatprotection would be the most spectacular
thing for India, let alone the us.
So I just hope that that offer work works.
And if anyone's listening whenyou get what you want, say yes.

>> H.R. McMaster (13:06):
Well, and you know, the competition with China was already paying
off for India in terms of offshoringa lot of manufacturing jobs.
Look at what Apple was doing for,for example.
And, and so I, yeah, I think, and youknow, India's got tremendous potential and
a lot of problems and massive onesbased on the size of the population.
So, the interconnected problems of energysecurity, food security, water security.
We, should be working with India on allthat, and, so should EU countries and

(13:31):
Japan, and that's future lives,I think, for India.
So, my, my essay, I mean, the essaywas pretty, was optimistic at the end.
I really do think, you know, thatthe relationship's going to get better.
But, India does love that,play it both ways, as Neil said,
Y Minister Jay Shankar his book,the Indian Way, he just,
he lays it out in that book,that the Indian way is to be.

(13:53):
To have it both ways, you and of course,
that doesn't always work outwhen you're dealing with some.
A partner,like the Chinese Communist Party,
who's not going to everbe a partner to India.

>> Bill Whalen (14:02):
So I mentioned that HR is in Hoover's Washington office,
which is a few blocks from the WhiteHouse, where not Too long ago, Mr.
Zelensky and European leaders came totalk with President Trump about the war.
It was at the end of those meetings thatthe American president said, and I quote,
that Vladimir Putin had a couple of weeksto meet face to face with Zelensky and
do a ceasefire, or else there would be,in Trump's words, very big consequences.

(14:25):
Niall, you have a trip to Ukrainecoming up in the near future.
What are you going into?

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (14:32):
Yeah, I should be heading to Kyiv in a week's time.
And it must be said that it'sa somewhat daunting prospect in
the sense that the air raids,the Russian air raids on Ukrainian
cities have been reachingunprecedented levels in recent weeks.
So I'm a little bit closer to,

(14:55):
the action than I amentirely comfortable being.
On the other hand,it's probably a good time to go and
get a sense of the mood there.
I think what's interesting isthat Alaska produced nothing.
And that wasn't surprising tome because it was a classic

(15:19):
illustration of summitry in whichatmospherics took precedence
over any real preparatory workthat might have produced results.
And the minute I saw Lavrovswagger into view wearing
a sweatshirt bearing the USSR,
I knew that the Russianswere not remotely serious.

(15:43):
So the war goes on, and President Trumphasn't yet found a way of exerting
leverage in such a way that he mightget Putin to make reasonable demands as
opposed to the unreasonable ones that hehas consistently made since the war began.
There's a misconception in, in many partsof the US that this is about territory.

(16:05):
It's not.
Putin wants to make sure that Ukraineis not viable as an independent state.
It's not about how many square milesof the Donbass he gets to keep.
And, so there really isn't any basis fora ceasefire or a peace that I can see.
And President Trump doesn't want toimpose pressure directly on Russia.

(16:27):
He, hence the pressure on India,because he doesn't want really to disrupt
Russia's oil exports, because hedoesn't really want to do anything
to add to the inflationary pressurethat his tariffs have already created.
So I think I'm going to a warthat is not about to stop.
And it wouldn't surprise me if that warwas still going 12 months from now.

(16:51):
I'll tell you one thing Ilearned this week, Bill.
I had a conversation with an old friendof mine who's a war correspondent,
is just back from the front line.
And this will interest HR especially,he said, you know,
the war is changing all the time.
It keeps shape shifting.
It's no longer an artillery war,which it previously was, not an armor war,
it's not even an infantry war.
It's more and more a drone war inwhich both sides are deploying

(17:15):
ever larger numbers of dronescovering ever wider ranges.
So there's now an extraordinarilydangerous no man's land in which
really normal human movement is lethal.
And this is a war the Ukrainians canactually hold out in because it makes them
much less reliant on manpower andmuch more reliant on technology.

(17:38):
And so I slightly improved myodds of Ukraine holding out for
longer because of this shift in the waythat the war is being fought, which
in a way plays to Ukraine's strengths interms of technology rather than manpower.
Hr, I'm not sure what you're hearing orthinking about the war right now,

(17:59):
but what I heard from the formerUkrainian foreign minister in the summer,
Dmitry Koleba, was that morale was downbecause people don't like being bombed.
Surprise.
But it wasn't at the point at whichanybody was remotely ready to fold and
accept Russian terms.
So there's a somber mood.

(18:19):
I surely expect to experiencethat in Kyiv next week.
But there's also still resolve.

>> H.R. McMaster (18:25):
Yeah, there is still resolve.
And I just met with a number of,of young, you know, mid level Ukrainian
officials and business people at Stanfordand, and I asked them this question.
I mean, I'm not to quote them directly,but the impression I got from them
is that obviously, you know,determination, the will is still there.
You can see that on the battlefield.
The degree to which the Russianseffort to gain kind of a prop and

(18:48):
a victory around Pokrovsk beforethe Alaska summit failed.
And the counterattacks are reallyseverely punishing the Russian forces
that were able to create that salientjust prior to the Alaska meeting.
But there is a sense that they'rerunning out of manpower and
of course they haven't gone below 26 forconscription.

(19:10):
But I sense kind of a desire fora ceasefire,
a ceasefire that would at least lockthings into place and allow the Ukrainian
armed forces to build back capability,right, and resilience and strength.
But as you mentioned, Niall, I do thinkthat the technology is in their favor.
And remember, Solutiony said this beforehe left the position of Chief of Staff of

(19:31):
their armored.
He said we're going to need toreally innovate technologically for
us to be able to survive this fightagainst a much larger country that can
generate a lot more manpower.
And that's what they've done.
And again, we've mentioned this beforeguys but I do think this is a lot like
the Western Front, World War I, where thewar went through different phases, right?

(19:51):
Initially massive manpower, right?
But the failure of the Schlieffen plan andthen the advent of the machine gun and
the degree to which the machinegun stalemated the trenches there.
Then what the Germans calledmaterialschlocked when it went into
the artillery phase,the massive artillery phase.
And then the Germans adapted tothat with the elastic defense.

(20:13):
There's a great monograph by a guy namedLoopfer on this that anybody can find
called the Dynamics of Doctrine and
it's fantastic about howthe German army shifted.
Then they went tothe infiltration tactics or
the hoodier tactics which I thinkare what the Russians are doing now.
Actually what you mentioned is nowthe new materiel Schlocks is FPV drones,

(20:35):
first person view drones andespecially now these wire guided ones
which are impervious to electromagneticwarfare countermeasures.
And, now as you mentionedcould be thrown for 30km.
It used to be those FPV drones,
with this filament coming out ofthe back could only go maybe 6, 7 km.

(20:56):
Now they go 30 km now.
Now you know what happens if you got a,if you got a very thinly man front line.
You still have to supply it,you still have to do casual evacuation.
And now whatever you're doing for
logistics you have to do over what is thisextended really no man's land to use the,
the Western front analogy againbecause of the range of those drones.

(21:16):
So this is the latest evolution.
Now there will be countermeasuresto these FPV drones.
They exist now.
How about drone versus drone?
How about drones that have computingpower at the edge and mesh communications
that allow them to operate withoutthe wire guided part of it.
But the mesh communicationsis self healing.

(21:37):
And then because they havecomputing power, they can learn,
they can learn and take on missionswhere you go from one to many.
One person right now on the,on the front is controlling one drone.
What happens when one personcan control 30, 40 drones?
You know, so, but what they've done, theirmanufacturing base too is unbelievable.
So John, I think, you know, for froman economist perspective looking at how

(22:00):
Ukraine adapted their wartime economy, youknow, went from all because you know they
were always an industrial powerhouse,right in terms of manufacturing and
knowledge of mechanics andautomotive and everything.
We saw that after the invasion of 2014.
I was in a position where I sent a teamto learn from the invasion of Ukraine in
2014.
And one of the things they brought backis man, these people can innovate.

(22:23):
And they were modifying tanks and
armored personnel carriers basedon what they were learning.
But now that you've seen that go toeven a higher degree of innovation,
not only just like in the tactics,but in the industrial base of Ukraine.

>> John H. Cochrane (22:40):
Well, let me just chime in.
Alaska, I will say to be provocative,it was a huge success.
And the reason I say thatis because the US and, and
Europe went in with some foggy ideas,come on, we'll make a deal here.
You get this, we get that, you know,and then settle down and stop fighting.
And the Russians said nyet.

(23:00):
And you can't have a clearer nyet thanthe nyet that came out of Alaska.
And I think that clarifies ideas forthe US we are at a negotiation impasse.
Russia wants an eviscerated Ukraine.
They want no country.
We were, our position was we're willingto, freeze the lines and you can have

(23:20):
the don't ask but you know, Ukraine staysassociated with the west, gets to rebuild,
take that industrial base, sell drones tothe U.S. and then go at it again in 10
years or hopeful deter Russia from,but that, that's not happening.
So there's nothing as clear as thatdeal is dead and so forget about it.
And I think that is sinking in onthe Trump administration and, and

(23:43):
the Europeans, although they werethey weren't quite so happy for it.
So that's clear.
Now, where do we go next?
Just a couple of questions.
I actually read that the Ukrainiansare already deploying drone swarms with
autonomous their autonomous AI andcommunicating with each other.
One guy is controlling 20 to 30 drones,and
the drones are able to select whotargets where along a line of targets.

(24:08):
So that's, that's, that's great forthe Ukrainians and very interesting for
the U.S. there's a whole questionof defense procurement and the U.S.
how in the world is the U.S. ever goingto match what the Ukrainians do where,
the guy in the front line calls up hisbuddy and says, send me some drones.
It doesn't go through central procurementin two decades worth of specifications and

(24:29):
search and so forth.
But is this the next phase?
The Russians are bombing citiesindiscriminately just to create terror and
reduce morale.
Isn't the lesson of history Hitlertried to bomb London for morale,
and all it did was tough as makethe British more determined than ever.

(24:51):
The US And
British bombed German cities thinkingthey were going to undermine morale.
And what did it do?
Everybody's in for Hitler.
They can't stand it.
Morale, bombing.
I thought the lesson was history.
That never works.
On the other end, Ukraine, and I wantto get your sense of how much this is
just my enthusiastic Twitterfeed versus reality.
Ukraine is bombing Russian energyfacilities and as far as I can tell,

(25:13):
making a real dent intheir refining capacity.
Now, the other story is thatstrategic bombing never works, but
maybe this time it actually is.
How much is the next phaseof the war going to be?
Us unleashes the use of our missiles for
deep strikes on the Russianeconomy because the Russia's.
Its defect is it's too big.

(25:34):
It doesn't have the air defenses todefend all of its refineries and
its front lines andVladimir Putin's estates.
So it's got to choose one.
And it's relatively easy for
the Ukrainians to take outthat entire oil capacity.
Am I just being hopeful oris this the next phase of the war?

>> H.R. McMaster (25:53):
Well, I know Neil's tracking it, so
I wanna ask Neil the same question.
But hey, on bombing and civilian morale,two great books on this, right?
One is by Conrad Crane called Bombs,Cities and Civilians, and
the other is by Mark Clodfeldercalled Beneficial bombing, right?
I think those are two great critiquesof that idea that you can win,

(26:14):
you can break will with bombing.
It actually can solidify will.
But on the question of goinginto refiners, remember,
we were talking about this, Gosh,I want to say, a year and a half ago,
when there were the first strikesagainst Russian oil refineries.
And these Russian oil refineries,they're old Soviet style, like big,
big refineries that youcan see from space.

(26:36):
I mean, from like,without sophisticated optics and so
these are really criticalpoints of failure.
I think it's effective because it affectstheir ability to sustain the war.
But also the populations, I mean,the special military operation.
This is why I can't getgas now in your gas lines.
I mean, what's your assessment of this?

(26:57):
Both I would say the Russian andthe Ukrainian version,
latest version of strategic bombing andthe effects, I feel like.

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (27:07):
Saying, ask me when I get back from Kyiv exactly what I
find there on the side of the Ukrainians.
I think the Russian economy is oneof the more difficult things to
understand in the worldtoday because we were told,
I think very misleadingly at the beginningof the war that it would be easy for

(27:31):
the west to impose verypainful sanctions on Russia.
And that has not happened.
And there are a number ofreasons why it hasn't happened.
One is obvious.
The Biden administration did not want todo anything that might to push inflation
up, which a real disruption ofRussian oil exports would have done.

(27:51):
Less well known, the Europeanscontinue to export to Russia via third
countries like Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan, etc.
But I think understanding why Russia'seconomy has apparently been so resilient
is one of the interesting challenges foreconomists and economic historians today.
One recent piece of research thatI have been looking at makes

(28:15):
it clear that China's support forRussia's war economy is
absolutely crucial tothe fact that the strains and
stresses have not beenas great as anticipated.
And I suspect we all continueto underestimate just
how crucial a factor that is inthe continuation of this war.

(28:36):
Which kind of brings usback to the subject of
meetings in Tianjin andBeijing in recent days.
But yeah,I'll report from after my trip to Kyiv
on just how morale is being affected.
I think it's certainly true to say,as you both have suggested,

(28:58):
that there's not much in the historicalliterature that would lead you to
think that bombing civilians would reallyhelp bring Russian victory closer.
Rather the reverse, I think seems likely.
It's also worth saying, isn't itHR that they're bombing the cities
because they're not making thatmuch progress on the front line.

(29:19):
And I rather took it as a bad sign forPutin's war that he was resourcing
to this very,very unlikely to succeed strategy, right?

>> H.R. McMaster (29:29):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of validity to that.
I mean, they've been going afterthe energy infrastructure for a long time.
There's also been obviously indiscriminatebombing happening to schools and
maternity hospitals, I mean,during the whole war.
But I do think that now justthe indiscriminate nature means that
they haven't been successful insome of these other campaigns.
And how about the resilience ofthe Ukrainians in terms of just the energy

(29:52):
infrastructure?
How many times they had majorpower stations and transformers,
everything taken out andthey're able to repair it?
It's unbelievable what they're doing.
Hey, a question for Niall and John.
I'm at this conference here.
It's a Hoover conference.
We have a public event as part of it, but

(30:12):
it's about the future ofthe transatlantic relationship.
And, I feel pretty goodabout it right now.
You've got, the President isabout to come visit you, Niall,
in the UK in a couple of weeks.
I think that bodes well because,you know, who doesn't love the pageantry?
Who loves the pageantrymore than Donald Trump?

>> John H. Cochrane (30:29):
Yeah, and the British will have a ticker tape parade for
Trump and celebrate the greatleader coming to visit us.

>> H.R. McMaster (30:36):
But I think it's good,
I think it's good because, President Trumpdoes learn from conversations and
we talked about the Alaska summit, butwhat we didn't really discuss as much is
the meeting with Europeanleaders on the back end of it.
And I think, if Putin thought that maybehe got something out of the Atlantic
summit because of the imagery, right, thathe came to Alaska not maybe as a spy as

(30:58):
much anymore, acting like he really doescare about building peace, you know,
with a backdrop and everything.
I think he lost it because what he wanted,what Putin wanted is he wanted the US
to agree to terms for a sea fire thatwere unacceptable to the Ukrainians and
then to use that as a wedgeto drive the United States
away from supporting Ukraine andaway from Europe as well, and

(31:22):
to fragment Europe, which is oneof his longer term objectives.
One of the reasons he's continued to wastethis word on Ukraine, he didn't get that.
He kind of got the opposite of that.
And so he has the US and
Europe aligned with terms thatare unacceptable to Putin right now.
So I don't know what is your, what is,since it's topic of this conference,

(31:42):
because I can maybe takeyour guys wisdom and
bring it in to the conferenceroom next door here in a minute.
What is your kind of prognosis forthe transatlantic relationship now?

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (31:51):
Well, a lot hinges, of course,
on what's going on inside the majorEuropean economies the Germans
are embarking on major rearmamentdrive and infrastructure investment.
Everything hinges on Friedrich Merzsucceeding in generating not just
significant armaments, butsignificant economic growth because

(32:13):
Germany needs to really bounceback economically if it's to meet
the challenge posed from the far rightby the alternativa for Deutschland.
The other problem that'sworth focusing on is in
France where the Berugovernment is about to fall and
there is absolutely no clear pathto fiscal or political stability.

(32:35):
And so while I know what you mean,HR, about Putin having
failed to achieve what he setout to achieve in Alaska,
I worry a lot about the strengthof our European allies,
each of which facessignificant domestic violence,
political difficultiesnot to omit from that.

(32:57):
The United Kingdom,no longer part of the eu, but
also struggling with the combinationof relatively low economic growth and
a major populist politicalchallenge to the government reform.
UK is leading in the polls.
Both Labour and
the Conservatives are now significantlybehind Nigel Farager's party.

(33:20):
And there is a somewhat feeble atmosphere,at least in sections of the British media.
So, you know your transatlanticrelationships are only as good as
the European allies are stable.
And at this point there has to besomething of a question mark over that.

>> John H. Cochrane (33:37):
Yeah, I would add.
So Europe, we may be on the edgeof the widely anticipated European
wide sovereign debt crisis.
All long term yields are going up.
I think Liz Truss is sittingthere quietly cackling at, see,
it can happen to you too.
But it's France and the ECB.

(33:57):
Are they really going to print upthe money to solve this problem?
Europe's big problem is growth stopped andthat includes the UK.
So I think everyone knowswhat to do about it.
They've regulated themselves to death andthey have like India,
their trade barriers.
So, you know, forus to be united politically,
it would be awfully niceto be united economically.
When do we all come to our senses andsay what we need is a giant free

(34:21):
trade zone between the US andEurope on both sides.
And that of course would be the greatestintegration that we could ask for.
And that would also just getEuropean growth going again,
because without growth, you can't pay offyour debts, you can't fund your military,
you can't pay your entitlements,all the rest of it.
That's the fundamental problem in Europe.

>> Bill Whalen (34:41):
You're interested, John, in the issue of the Fed and independence.
I'd like you to define that for us,
are you talking about the pressure onJerome Powell to lower interest rates?
Are you talking about the President'sefforts to fire a Fed governor, or
are you talking about Somethinglarger like Fed drift?

>> John H. Cochrane (34:57):
Fed drift and the, the Fed's forays into politics,
fiscal policy, transferring money fromA to B, telling the banks who to lend to,
assessing fines and so forth.
Let me try to keep this short becauseI could just give a lecture here.
This is very much on my mind, butit's very much on the country's mind.
All of a sudden, these issues thathave just laid dormant for 20 years,

(35:19):
what's the institutional structure ofthe Fed are, are suddenly on, on display.
And not just, you know,Trump wants lower interest rates and
he wants to fire Fed board membersin order to get his way, and
we'll see if he has the legalauthority to do that.
But Congress has woken up andsaid, hey, what's going on here?
We want accountability to Congress.

(35:39):
So this fundamental question of,
you know, should the Presidentbe able to fire Fed members?
Should the President be ableto tell the Fed what to do?
Should Congress take a bigger rolein telling what the Fed what to do?
That's, that's all up in the air.
And I think a moment for
us economists to think hard about itbecause somebody will finally be listed.
You know, for years, especiallyaround Hoover, we've been saying,

(36:00):
fed don't do stuff like thisbecause you lose your independence.
And everyone said, don't worry about that,don't worry about that,
don't worry about that.
Well, here we are.
Elizabeth Warren is just as hot togo after telling the Fed what to do
as is Steve Marin on the rightin the Trump administration.
So independence is not an absolute.
We do not elect technocrats to runthings forever because what happens?

(36:26):
Well, they run things offin their own direction.
And there is a problem.
The Fed has, as predictably of all semiindependent agencies, steadily increased
what it does, taken on more andmore powers, started telling more and more
people what to do, wandered into politicalcauses that has no business doing.
And so there's a question,hey, what's going on here?

(36:47):
Independence is a limited thing that wegive an agency in order to kind of tie
our hands sothat we don't do stupid things.
But in return for, you only get to bea little bit independent if you stick to
your knitting anddo some limited range of operations.
The Fed kind of broke that,and now all hell breaks loose.

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (37:06):
Well, John, it's not as if Donald Trump's
the first president to want to applypressure to the Federal Reserve.
And this seems to me one of the thingsthat he has in common with Richard Nixon,
a sense that really there ought tobe a way to lean on the Fed chair.

(37:31):
I've always been ofthe view that independent
central banks are a teenybit like Santa Claus.
You've got to recognize that there cannotbe a truly independent central bank.
And there's always some kind ofpolitical influence at work,

(37:53):
even if you imagine a world wheretechnocrats set the Taylor Rule and
live in a, kind of, monastic seclusionfrom the rest of Washington.
But I wonder if we should thinkof this as part of a broader
challenge by President Trumpthat extends far beyond the Fed.

(38:15):
I keep coming back to Arthur Schlesinger'sidea of the imperial presidency.
It seems to me that the real themeof the second Trump term is a very
systematic expansion ofthe executive branch's powers.
And I actually think the claim thatthe president gets to set tariffs

(38:37):
in is a much more profound challengeto the constitutional order,
because the Constitution very explicitlysays that that's the power of Congress,
not the power of the president.
So I'm inclined to broaden this out andsee the leaning on the Fed,
which is not unprecedented,as part of a kind of broader attempt

(38:59):
to make the presidencya more powerful office.
And that is making some people,including some that I take seriously,
like my old friend Andrew Sullivan,very worried indeed.
Bill, I know you've beenthinking about this issue too.
So I think this is about much morethan just monetary policy and
who gets to succeed Jay Powell.

(39:21):
It's about how powerful a presidentis President Trump gonna be by
the time he comes to the endof this second term.

>> John H. Cochrane (39:31):
That's very good.
The classic case for an independent Fedis Nixon pressuring the Fed to lower
interest rates in advance of the election,which gave us inflation.
But that argument that wewant an independent Fed so
it doesn't respond to politicalpressures ahead of elections,
that would apply in spades to the treasurybecause governments are also tempted

(39:52):
to hand out stimulus checksin advance of elections.
And we certainly don't want put taxing and
spending in the charge ofindependent bureaucrats.
So it's a delicate argument.
I think we're at a second phase whereWorld War II is the historical analogy.
Why does Trump want lower interest rates?
He wants them because he wantslower interest costs on the debt.

(40:12):
And we're heading intoFerguson's Law territory.
And that's what you do in a war,in an existential crisis.
The Fed holds down interest costson the debt because you got
to finance World War II.
Now it's whether our current fiscal thingis World War II or simply responsibility.
The question that's a deeper issueof fiscal and monetary coordination,

(40:33):
which, you know,we can't avoid talking about now.
Too independent.
Yeah, like the ECB is very independent andthe head of the ECB can decide that she
wants to go off and save the world fromclimate change by buying green bonds.
So that's the kind of reason whywe don't want too independent.
You're exactly right.
It's always a balance.
Now, the imperial presidency,I worry about this too.

(40:54):
But there's two ways ofseeing what's happened.
One is you have in the Fed, in the CDC,in God knows how many institutions,
in universities, institutions thathave gone the wrong way for 20,
30 years and become resistant tothe standard methods of reform.
I think we would all rather norms andprocess and steady reform and Mr.

(41:16):
Trump appoint people when the timecomes and we'll have commissions and
bipartisan congressional committees andreform the institutions and so forth.
I think Trump's attitudeis the clock is ticking.
I mean, one way of understanding itthat isn't this is fascism coming,
is the clock is ticking.
I gotta break this thing apart andget, you know,

(41:38):
that kind of deep reformto actually happen.
And that's the nicest wayto see what's going on.
And tariffs is similar.
And here too the problem is Congress.
Tariffs are supposed to be taxes, but.
But Congress delegated this power and
now we're talking about who gets todetermine what's a national emergency.

(41:59):
And does regulate implythe power to tax and so forth.
It's not as clearly illegal as it seemsbecause Congress is asleep at the switch.

>> Bill Whalen (42:08):
I think John mentioned fascism and I want to get back to that
since we have two historians andmaybe can explain what fascism is exactly.
But John,you made a brief reference to spending.
So let's talk about something thathappened since the last time we
did our show.
The United States of America is nowa 10% equity stakeholder in Intel.
So let's go around the horn with this,John.
Is this a good return on investment forthe US of A.
HR does this make sense interms of national security?

(42:31):
And Niall, our friend Kevin Hassett,
he's the head ofthe White House National Economic Council.
He said on a quote,
there will be more transactions if notin this industry than other industries.
So Neil, what his history suggestsabout the government getting in bed
with the private sector.
So John, you started,return on investment, good idea or not?

>> John H. Cochrane (42:47):
The US already has an investment in Intel.
It's called the corporate tax,the income tax.
If companies succeed,the government makes money.
Thank you very much.
So does the government does not needto have equity stakes in corporations.
I'm going to take,I'm going to poach a little bit on Neil.
The history of company governmentsowning equity in companies leads

(43:10):
to telling the companies what to do.
And sooner orlater you're not allowed to fire people.
You're not allowed to close plants.
You're not allowed to do allthe uncomfortable things that efficient
capitalist countries do.
You want to see where this leads?
Look at our friend France.
So I think this is a terrible idea.

>> Bill Whalen (43:28):
HR national security implications.

>> H.R. McMaster (43:30):
Well, there already was the decision to subsidize the chip
industry.
So I think when you, when you consider,
you know the degree to whichthe government's going to take a stake,
you have to go back to thatinitial decision to you know,
in recognition that hey, not makingchips here is a big vulnerability.
Know, especially when 90% of the mosthigh end ships are produced in Taiwan and

(43:52):
Taiwan's in a kind ofa dangerous situation.
So you know I think, I think there, therewas a decision to subsidize the industry
and this really decision to take a stakein Intel kind of, flows from that.
So yeah, I just think you have to lookat this as, as not as not unrelated,
you know it's really, it's really kindof a consequence of the CHIPS act,

(44:14):
which you know, which I kind of,I supported for national security reasons.

>> John H. Cochrane (44:20):
I got to take a little needle on, on HR McMaster and
your economic statecraft once again.
You know, that's exactly, exactly.
We gotta subsidize chipsto make them in the US and
industrial policy is gonnamake us great again.
And it, you know,like taking equity stakes in gm.
Look how that worked out.
All of a sudden we're,we're subsidizing and
taking equity stakes in the loser here.

(44:40):
How about AMD?
Now we're going to be, we're going to Be.

>> H.R. McMaster (44:45):
Just so you know- >> John H. Cochrane
turned into a bloated disaster.
Just, just so you know, I'm paying attention in class.
Right.Okay.
Is that, you know,
this was to counter actually unfairtrade practices by Taiwan and TSMC.
Huge subsidies that resulted ina national security, you know,
a national security concern.
So the public good, the public good of,of, of reducing that national security

(45:09):
vulnerability was, was incentivizingchip manufacturing in the United States.
Right.So that's, I mean,
did I get that right, John?

>> John H. Cochrane (45:18):
I mean, isn't that when, when we do subsidies,
it turns into the Jones Act?
It turns into bloated things thatnever make money and never innovate.
So matching subsidies with subsidies,
becoming communistsourselves is not the answer.
And I think we agreed on the question.
It was different answer.
Sorry, Niall, I jumped in on youcuz I always have to bat HR around

(45:38):
any time economic state does awry.

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (45:41):
Well,
far be it from me to take issue withthe great Kevin Hassett, but, John, I,
I think that the reality is that if intelcouldn't succeed with private capital,
with the kind of investors thatunderstand technology better than
anyone in the world, it seems tome a little unlikely that it will

(46:04):
do better with an equity injectionfrom the federal government.
And Intel's plight is one of the saddeststories in the history of Silicon Valley.
I'll be absolutely amazed, and I'll buyKevin Hassett dinner in the restaurant
of his Choice in Washington D.C. in ifthe federal government can succeed where

(46:28):
everybody else has failed with intelin the last, what, 10 plus 20 years.

>> John H. Cochrane (46:33):
I will join you for that dinner.
And in particular, I want to justdouble down on what you said.
There's no argument in the world thatthere is a lack of capital in the US for
profitable projects in the tech sector.
I mean, the valuations of the AIcompanies, we're way past 1999 here.

(46:54):
So, yeah, you know, let's hope.
But there's just no argument thatthe government needed to do this because.
And it wasn't actuallya capital injection.
You know, they got subsidies and, and.
They gave away credits.

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (47:10):
Yeah, the standard problem in Cold wars, and this was pointed
out many times in the original Cold War,is that you end up becoming your enemy.
And so if we have to do state capitalism,because the Chinese are so
good at state capitalism, I thinkwe're forgetting the real lesson of
the Cold War, which is not tobecome like your adversary.

(47:32):
Convergence was one of the greatdelusions of the first Cold War.
I smell convergence theorymaking a nasty comeback here.
But state capitalism is not the waywe're going to win this second Cold War.
Not in my view.

>> John H. Cochrane (47:48):
This is more socialism,
government owning the means of production.
We were heading towards a fascismquestion, which is more crony capitalism,
which is, I think the danger in the USas opposed to state capitalism.
But also, even if the Chineseare good at state capitalism,
it strikes me the US isincredibly bad at it.
So just even if you thinkthey're doing wonderful at it,

(48:09):
that doesn't mean we should do it.

>> Bill Whalen (48:11):
Well John, bless your heart for saying fascism because that
teased me up to ask Neil,what about fascism in this regard?
Neil, the Democrats,the party out of power in America,
has this knee jerk response to almostanything President Trump does.
It is quote,something out of the dictator's playbook.
You'll find that inDemocratic press releases.
You'll find it in Sign Bytes and NBC.
You'll find it all across the Internet.

(48:32):
The dictator's playbook.
A mural of Trump is hung outsidethe Labor Department on Labor Day.
That's what dictators do.
He sends a national guardinto cities to quell crime.
That's what dictators do.
He names himself chair of the Kennedycenter for the Performing Arts.
This is what dictators do.
There recently was a pieceof the Financial Times,
the hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio wasquoted, Neal, saying the following quote,

(48:53):
I think what is happeningnow politically and
socially is analogous to what happenedaround the world in the 1930-1940 period
which Neil tastes back to thisquestion of fascism and dictatorship.
So please, as a historian,explain to us fascism and
is there any analogy to Donald Trump?

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (49:09):
Yeah, there are some serious people making this kind of
argument.
Tim Snyder,
the historian who actually fled the UnitedStates when Donald Trump was re elected.
My old friend Andrew Sullivan's come backto this theme in a recent blog post and,
and needless to say, the Guardiannewspaper has, has weighed in too.

(49:30):
So there is a way of doingthis which is first reread,
it can't happen here by Sinclair Lewis.
And when you do that,that's the 1935 novel in which Lewis
imagined a bombastic Democratic senator,actually Buzz Windrup,
who establishes a fascistregime in America.

(49:53):
This is something we've beenworrying about for many years.
It was the subject ofthe Plot Against America by Philip Roth.
You may remember that novel.
And then of course,Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale is
another dystopian imagining of,of a fascist America.
And when I look at these various articles,including Dalio's,

(50:17):
I find myself struggling a bitbecause the charge sheet,
it's kind of impressionistic.
He sends in armed soldiers to the cities,or
he withholds money from universities,he targets law firms.
He, fires members ofthe Federal Reserve Board.

(50:41):
And you kind of go through thislist thinking is this Fascism or
is it just the exerciseof presidential power?
So here are two ways I think thatone can answer this question.
One is just to read Jack Goldsmith,and I highly recommend that people

(51:01):
who are getting very antsy aboutPresident Trump's conduct just refresh
their memories by reading a seriousconstitutional legal scholar like
Goldsmith, who shows that we are seeingan expansion of presidential power,
but it's not something thatstarted on January 20 this year.

(51:22):
He has a brilliant series of essaysshowing that the presidential powers have
been expanding, you could argue sinceRoosevelt or since Nixon, but you
can see some very significant expansionsof presidential power by Obama and
Biden as well as by Trump.
And some of what Trump is doing simplybuilds on things that the Biden
administration did.
So that's check one.

(51:43):
But the really important check is justlet's get in the time machine, shall we?
I'm going to take you backto 1938 in Berlin, and
that seems a fair comparison becausethat was the fifth year of Hitler's
government in Germany andwe're in year five of the Trump era.
I think you'd find a pretty differentplace from any American city in 2025.

(52:09):
And this is why people using the termfascism are either suffering from kind
of amnesia or they just neverreally studied these regimes.
Because what would you encounterif you were to do that?
Well, you would encounter a far,far more violent and
militarized regime than anything thatwe see in the United States today.

(52:31):
The fascist regimes of the interwarperiod came from depression,
not from a sustained expansion.
They were explicitly revolutionary.
Their stated goal was entirely tooverthrow the existing constitution.
They did it really.
There was large scale violence by partyagencies like the SA, the Sturm Abteilum,
a complete takeover of the media,which you may have noticed hasn't really

(52:54):
happened, or Andrew Sullivan wouldn'tbe able to write what he writes.
There was a complete subordinationof the military to the Fuhrer.
The entire economy was harnessed tothe goal of rearmament with the view to
fighting another war to undothe result of the First World War.
War was the centralgoal of foreign policy.
Anti-Semitism wasn't a bug,it was a feature of the entire regime.

(53:18):
And I could go on.
I mean, let me just give you one example.
As early as 1930, July 1933,
there were already 26,000 people in socalled productive custody.
When people say butwhat about the deportations?
I say, as I said to Andrew Sullivanin his podcast just the other day,

(53:41):
but I thought you were against illegalimmigration because there seems to
be a profound difference here thatis constantly being lost sight of.
Everything that is happening underthis president is being challenged in
the courts, andthat is not what was happening in Germany,
I can assure you, in 1938, orindeed in 1933, for that matter.

(54:03):
Last thing I'll say, and this comes backto the rule of law as something which
doesn't happen as fast as perhapsas journalists would like.
There are three hundred andeighty-nine cases, according to a website,
Just Security, involving challenges tothe Trump administration right now,
of which only a tiny numberhave actually been settled.

(54:26):
Most of them are either blocked,temporarily blocked, block,
pending appeal, and so on.
It will be a long time before one cancredibly say that, that the constitution
or the rule of law have been overthrown,because we're not even close to
knowing how many of these cases thatthe administration is going to lose.
And I would guess it will losea significant number of them,

(54:47):
including some of the really big ones thatwill eventually go to the Supreme Court.
If you think this is fascism,then come to my time machine.
We'll go to Berlin in 1938.
We'll spend the day there.
If you think you'd rather stay orcome back to the United States,
that will be your decision, John.

>> John H. Cochrane (55:05):
Yeah, so you mentioned Germany.
There's also Italy, where the term fascismactually started, which was not so
much militarist, expansionist,but had all the same features,
which I think is, you know,there's a domestic fascism.
And one big difference.

(55:26):
So the fascists, Mussolini andHitler ruled by decree.
Now there's proclamation of a state ofemergency, and ruled that by degree, but
that means they write laws.
And whatever Trump is doing,he is not writing laws.
He's issuing executive orders.
And I went out, I had some fun.
I wasted a couple days reading theexecutive orders because I was already in
the mood.

(55:46):
Trump is ruling by decree.
How terrible it is.
Almost all the executiveorders are simply telling
publicly administrative agencies todo things that he had every right to
haul the head of the agency into hisoffice and say, do this privately.
I direct the administrative agency to,you know, the,
the National Science foundation get rid ofthe DEI stuff and all the grant programs.

(56:07):
Well, he's allowed to do that.
And that's, as you said,it is still within the law.
As you said, the courts are stillpushing back the, the big tariff case.
The administration just lost,despite some rather hilarious claims,
it's going to the Supreme Court.
A lot of these other things can lose.
It is the continuation of the phone andthe pen.
I wish we had an opposition.

(56:28):
Who could be more principledon this sort of thing?
We are not.
Now, the other side will say,well, it's the slippery slope.
Here we go.
But I think the slippery slopeis the crony capitalism slope.
The president retains such powerthat Tim Cook goes running to
the White House to getan exemption from tariffs.

(56:51):
This is very ugly.
I hope it is an ugliness that ourother branches, the legal system,
seems quite ready tohelp contain Congress.
Where are you calling Congress?
If we don't like the delegationof authority, which is perfect.
Which is legal, even, the legal tariffsimply an immense delegation of authority.

(57:13):
The president, you know,wake up and bring that back.
But, yes, this is not fascism.
This is a very powerful presidency within
the current US Legal system andabout to be checked.

>> Bill Whalen (57:28):
So, HR There you are in Washington, and
eight years ago at this time,
you're going through all thisfirsthand in the White House.
Is this as bad as it was in 2017in terms of Trump disorientation,
or is Trump disorientation 2o worse?

>> H.R. McMaster (57:42):
Well, it's different, right?
It's a different kind of disorientation.
I think these, these calls, you know,for, about fascism and so forth.
I think it's important to recognizethat's the term that Xi Jinping and
Vladimir Putin used as they were kindof reinventing history during this
celebration of the 80th anniversaryof the end of World War II.

(58:04):
And I see it as cases,the cases that involve the rise of fascist
regimes in Italy, as John pointed out,where the term was invented.
But I think in a book thatMussolini published 1932, so
in it, he talks about the statebeing everything, right?

(58:24):
Everything defers to the state.
Well, I mean, Americans, I think,
are fundamentally unwillingto give up their sovereignty.
I mean, here we are coming up onthe 250th anniversary of our nation,
of our independence, and our countrywas based on the very radical idea that
sovereignty lied neither with king norparliament, but with the people right.

(58:45):
And so if you don't like a government, ifyou don't like what a president's doing,
you have the power to vote them out.
So I think when you hear about theseterms like fascism, it actually is
unfair to the American people becauseit robs the American people of agency.
And we may have time to talk about thistoday, but I'd like to ask, Niall,
what about this kind of dark Enlightenmentmovement in elements of the right?

(59:08):
So on the right in the US, it was alwayswhat we're committed to at Hoover, right?
Ideas, advancing a free society,freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly,fundamental rights that Americans enjoy.
And there's also been a stronglibertarian streak through Hoover,
through Milton Friedman,down to John Cochran.

(59:30):
But this dark Enlightenment movementis strange to me because it calls for
people to give up their sovereignty toelite leaders who will know better.
And, it creates a sense that we're in sucha crisis that we need to find that strong
leader to lead us out of this, which waskind of the mentality that helped give
rise to fascist regimes in the 30s.

(59:51):
So, Neil, can you share your.
I imagine that you were betterversed in this dark enlightenment.
This is the Curtis Yarvin type movement.
What is that about?

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (01:00:02):
I will simply say that what I know of
Curtis Yarvin I do not like.
And I think anybody, even if they'remerely being a provocateur who argues for
transition to authoritarianism andaway from democracy is wicked and

(01:00:23):
wicked because they are leading naive and
ignorant people intoa very dangerous path.
The lesson of history is clear,it's very, very clear indeed.
That if you entrust too muchpower to individuals and
there are no checks on that power andthere is no accountability,

(01:00:43):
then nearly always thatpower will be abused.
I've been reading Suetonius's Livesof the Caesars by,
in a new translation by Tom Holland.
It's amazing how quicklythe Roman emperors became
entirely debauched and abused their power.
It's extremely important to remindourselves how the fascist regimes of

(01:01:06):
the interwar period violated humanrights within just a few years,
on a massive scale within justa few years of coming to power.
So, no, I think this woke rights, I thinkI prefer that to dark enlightenment
is a snare and a delusion anda kind of intellectual style scam.
The kind of thing that has proliferatedon, on the Internet, alas,

(01:01:30):
rather like the podcasts of.
Of Tucker Carlson these days,where you kind of get.
You get eyeballs andclicks by saying, actually,
Churchill was the villain ofWorld War II and Hitler's cool.
I mean, that stuff to me isjust disgusting and pathetic.

>> John H. Cochrane (01:01:46):
I think we're missing the point, which is we talk about fascism,
but the real danger in the US is notfascism, it's too much democracy.
And what I mean by this is we,
we're going and seeming to accept a systemwhere we elect a king for four years.
So you still have elections, you stillhave the freedom to throw the bums out,
but all power is vested in the more andmore power is vested in the executive.

(01:02:09):
And so, yes, you throw the bum out andput a new bum, but then he is king for
four years and rules by decree.
And that is not.
As we go to our anniversary,let's remember,
we are rule of law,we are constitutional limits.
We are norms and traditions.
We are not a democracy that elects a kingevery four years who can do whatever
he wants.

(01:02:29):
And that I think is the danger.

>> Bill Whalen (01:02:32):
Okay, let's leave it there, gentlemen, Great conversation.
Hey, I got a question forthe three of you.
I understand that you all are goingto be in London next week together.
Why don't the three of you hop into a cab,go over to Abbey Road,
get on top of a roof.
Put on a show.
[MUSIC]

>> H.R. McMaster (01:02:47):
It's been done.

>> Bill Whalen (01:02:48):
Who's going to be Ringo?

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (01:02:49):
I seem to remember that the police were called when
the Beatles did that.
And these days they're even more likelyto be cold because we might be guilty of
the terrible crime long acknowledgedin English law of free speech.
And you wouldn't want to end up in jailwhen you could be joining me on a,
on a train to Kiev, would you, lads?

>> John H. Cochrane (01:03:11):
Or we could be thinking, thinking and praying silently,
which is apparently alsoa crime in the UK now.

>> Sir Niall Ferguson (01:03:18):
Or even waving a flag.
Careful.
Yeah, all kinds of things that cango wrong when we're in London.
Just watch your social media beforeyou board the flight to Heathrow,
chaps, because the police might bewaiting to put on the handcuffs
if you've done anything that mighttrigger the forces of law and
order in Keir Starmer'sfreedom-loving Britain.

>> Bill Whalen (01:03:40):
And on that cheery note,
we will say cheerio to thisinstallment of the Goodfellows.
On behalf of my colleagues,Sir Niall Ferguson, H.R.
McMaster, John Cochrane, all of ushere at the Hoover Institute, hope you
enjoy today's show till next time,which will be sometime in early October.
We'll see you then.
Meanwhile, take care andonce again, thanks for joining us.
[MUSIC]

>> Speaker 5 (01:04:01):
If you enjoyed this show and
are interested in watchingmore content featuring H.R.
McMaster, watch Battlegrounds,also available at Hoover.org.