Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office in a manner few saw coming – he won America’s popular vote; his coattails may lead to Republican control of Congress – while progressive institutions (legacy media, Hollywood, wokeism, and a tired Democratic playbook) take a beating.
New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens joins Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster to discuss an American election that defied conventional wisdom – and how Trump should proceed in the weeks ahead (key cabinet appointments, foreign and economic policies) given the surprise gift of an Election Night mandate.
Recorded on November 7, 2024.
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Episode Transcript
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>> Donald Trump (00:01):
Well, I want to thank you all very much, this is great,
these are our friends.
We have thousands of friendson this incredible movement.
This was a movement likenobody's ever seen before.
And frankly, this was, I believe,
the greatest politicalmovement of all time.
(00:24):
There's ever been anything like thisin this country and maybe beyond.
>> Bill Whalen (00:30):
It's Thursday, November 7, 2024, and welcome back to GoodFellows,
a Hoover Institution broadcast examiningsocial, economic, political and
geopolitical concerns.
I'm Bill Whalen.
I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow,and I'll be your moderator today.
I'm pleased to report that I'm joinedby our full complement of Goodfellows,
as we jokingly refer to them.
That would include the historian Sir NiallFerguson, the economist John Cochrane, and
(00:52):
former presidential national securityadvisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.
And we're also joined today by New YorkTimes opinion columnist Bret Stephens.
Bret, thanks for coming on the show.
>> Bret Stephens (01:03):
Thanks for having me back.
>> Bill Whalen (01:04):
First, let's talk about the election in America as we record
the show on Thursday morning.
Donald Trump has collected312 electoral votes.
That's the most by a Republicansince George H.W Bush in 1988.
He won a majority of the popular vote, thefirst time that's happened since 2004 for
a Republican.
He has the Senate in his pocket.
(01:25):
He's on a path to get the Houseunder Republican control.
And consider this,Trump having won the popular vote,
having both branches of Congress,
we think Republicans having a majorityof state legislatures around America and
a majority of Supreme Court justicesappointed by Trump and George W Bush.
The last president in America to havethis situation when it came into office
(01:48):
was Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.
So we could say that Trump hasa rather advantageous situation.
Bret, I want you to begin and I want youto explain a column that you wrote for
the New York Times.
The headline a Party of Prigs and
Pontificators Suffersa humiliating Defeat.
Who are the prigs and pontificators?
>> Bret Stephens (02:04):
Well, it's the establishment of the Democratic Party.
This election was an extraordinarypersonal vindication for
President Trump, butit was also a stinging,
stunning, decisive repudiation of what
the Democratic Party underthis administration.
(02:27):
And really since Barack Obama'stime has become,
which is a party of a kindof incessant moralizing,
a dismissal of the everydayconcerns of the American people,
including orparticularly working class Americans.
A party that increasingly bends oradheres to a bizarre
(02:52):
set of cultural norms thatstrike Americans wrong.
A party that insists ona new kind of language,
terminology in everyday life that tomany of us just sounds Orwellian,
a party that is more interestedin dividing the country
(03:13):
into different identity groupsrather than uniting it or
overcoming those separate identities.
And Kamala Harris, fora variety of reasons, I think,
was the embodiment of thatversion of the Democratic Party.
And Americans turned againstit in exceptional numbers.
(03:37):
So this is one of those moments whennot only do you have to take stock of
what Donald Trump and the Republican Partywas able to achieve, but
I think liberals in some ofthe precincts I inhabit need to
really re examine how it isthat they conduct politics.
Because as it is, the only word forit is insufferable.
(04:00):
That's why I talked about pomposity andpriggishness.
And I guess I should have added forthe sake of alliteration,
piety, which is a big part ofthe new liberal dispensation.
>> Bill Whalen (04:16):
Niall, you wrote a column for the Free Press in which you talk
about, and I quote, the resurrection ofDonald J Trump, what is the resurrection?
>> Niall Ferguson (04:22):
Well, I actually wrote it's the only comeback.
It's not bigger than is the resurrection.
So the headline slightly wentfurther than I wanted to.
It's very hard to think of a politicalcomeback to match this in American
history, and I don't know.
>> Bill Whalen (04:39):
More than Nixon.
>> Niall Ferguson (04:40):
Well, yes, because Nixon was faced with
impeachment and destroyed at the end.
Well, in the middle,really, of his second term.
They tried to destroy Donald Trumpduring and after his first term,
and they tried to destroyhim every which way.
(05:03):
Let's not forgetthe assassination attempts,
one of which very nearly killed him.
Four criminal cases in oneof which he was convicted,
two impeachments during his first term,and so
many different lawsuits that when I triedto count them up, I really lost count.
>> H.R. McMaster (05:24):
And hey, Naill, I would just add the deliberate effort by
the media to take him down as,as you mentioned, like the, you know, the,
the NPR revelations,all that stuff, you know.
>> Niall Ferguson (05:34):
Well, Nixon, of course, had that.
And, andthe two presidents have much in common,
which is why Donald Trump was somethingof a fanboy of Nixon as a young man.
But, compared with whatwas thrown at Nixon,
what was thrown at Trumpwas a great deal worse.
And I think we thought when wewere talking about Trump back in
(05:56):
January of 2021,there was no possible way back for him.
I remember saying that, andnot only is he back, but
he didn't just scrape home,he crushed Kamala Harris
in a far more decisive outcomethan almost anybody predicted.
(06:17):
And this is the critical pointthat gets to Bret's point.
He destroyed The Obama vision ofa kind of rainbow coalition of
identity politics thatthe Republicans could never beat.
Donald Trump didn't just wina majority of white male voters.
He won a majority of Hispanic male voters,
(06:37):
he doubled his share of black male votes.
And so, he has not just scrapedhome as he did in 2016.
He's won decisively andlooks like he's led a Republican sweep.
I can't think of a political comebackin American history to match this.
(06:59):
And it's hard to think of anypundit who saw this coming.
Only the poly market predictionmarket got it right.
Every pollster massivelyunderstated the margin of victory.
And it's weird that we, we were takenin by that since they understated his
(07:20):
performance in the last two elections.
So I don't know why we didn'texpect them to do it again.
I went through a period ofanxiety about the election thing.
He is not gonna be decisive,it's gonna be another version of 2020 or
maybe even 2000.
But that was just because I was payingattention to pollsters instead of just
focusing on the poly market and preparingfor the Trump comeback, the resurrection.
>> John H. Cochrane (07:45):
Well, thank God it was decisive.
We've spent a year or two here onGoodfellows worrying about what was gonna
happen after a close election andhow it would tear the country apart
to the point that to say somethingnice about Kamala Harris,
I heard her speech., And she concededthe election, no, Russia stole it,
(08:05):
[COUGH] no voter suppression,no, it was all racist.
No, we lost andsaid a little too pointedly peaceful
transfer of power and we will help.
That's sort of normal verbiagein American elections, but
to hear return tonormalcy is kind of nice.
I want to echo that it wasin many ways a vote against,
(08:25):
not quite as much as a vote for a voteagainst what the current Democratic Party,
not the person of the incarnincumbent has come to mean.
And it was a vibes [COUGH] election,not a detailed policy plan election.
Much as you know,within the white halls of Hoover,
we love to debate detailed policy plans,there weren't any and
(08:47):
I don't think anybodycared about them anyway.
There was sort of an expectationof what's going to come, but
not what the President saidthe vibes were important.
What are we voting against and for?
I think for, is not so much the personof Donald Trump, he embodies a vision,
but vibes of we believe in our country andwe want spaceships to Mars.
(09:10):
[LAUGH] Bringing Elon Musk alongwas a very forward looking sign,
it's not just tariffs to bringback the 1950s, it's opportunity.
We're voting against the permitoffice as much as anything else.
A big vote against lawfare.
Maybe I'm guilty of projectingmy own annoyances, but
(09:31):
the use of the justice system,the regulatory state censorship
to go after political opponentsI found appalling and
I think many of my fellowAmericans did too.
Donald Trump should have been retiredto Mar a Lago about February,
after the last election andthe Democrats brought him back.
(09:52):
Because when you go after him withsuch obviously trumped up charges,
Americans go, my country is not Pakistan,my country is not Tunisia.
Yeah, when you lose an election,you don't lose your job,
your business, your life, your freedom.
So, such transparent misuseof the justice system for
(10:15):
political aims that that neverhappened in this country before.
For example, spiking the hunterlaptop story of all the many,
that's another one as well.
Censorship, I think we sawthe pervasive censorship.
For example during COVID peoplegot really annoyed by that,
which led them to see incompetence andI think inflation.
(10:36):
Of course, I'm an economist, inflationis big, but that really rang in America.
Everyday Americans who maybedon't read all the stories about
various lawfare escapades, butsetting off [COUGH] a 9 to 10%
inflation cumulative about20% over the period,
that just speaks of complete incompetence[LAUGH] of your economic policy.
(11:00):
Whether it is or not, I'll leave to myfellow monetary economists to debate.
But in the eyes of everyday Americans,what started in the financial crisis goes
on to the retreat from Afghanistan, goeson to one catastrophe after obviously not
knowing what they're doing with COVIDprotections and then 10% inflation.
They're voting against incompetence.
And in academia,we're voting against the DEI office.
>> Niall Ferguson (11:23):
John, I need to interrupt you.
This list is too long,you know why you're an economist, but
you've forgotten that it's the economy,I won't say stupid.
>> John H. Cochrane (11:34):
Well, I don't think it's just because objectively.
>> Niall Ferguson (11:36):
No, no, no, hear me out, hear me out, very simple point,
very simple point.
Let's get Occam's razor out here.
If you look at medianhousehold income adjusted for
inflation, forevery president since Richard Nixon,
Donald Trump's first term was byfar the best presidential run.
(12:00):
2.09% compound annual growth,
Biden 0.44% Obama 0.45,
Bush Jr minus 0.22, and I could go on.
How about a real simple explanation?
The Trump economy rocked by comparison,the Biden Harris economy sucked,
(12:20):
as you said, because of inflation.
And all this other stuffyou're adding is superfluous,
that we don't need to know it.
>> John H. Cochrane (12:26):
I think it's important, I think a sense that the basic
institutions of our countryare hollowed out was important.
Okay, one last point, not close, becauseyou asked about the political comeback.
That was remarkable.
Partly it's due to the Democrats whoby going after him, brought him back,
partly it's because of the talentsof Donald Trump as a politician.
(12:50):
And here I'll credit the New York Times,they had a hit piece on Trump,
how terrible it is that he's spendingfour years going after going at every
congressman and insisting thatthat congressman support him.
That's what politicians do.
And bringing the Republican Party, whichshould have sort of moved on to a new face
under his wing was, like it or not,a remarkable political achievement.
(13:12):
Okay, sorry,my list did get too long [LAUGH].
>> Bill Whalen (13:14):
Can I, throw one element in here?
That Trump ran just a more nimble,more creative campaign than she did.
She ran a very old school Democraticcampaign, running around with celebrities.
He took advantage of new media,this was the campaign of free press,
this was the campaignof Joe Rogan podcast.
The Democrats, meanwhile,
obsessed over not getting endorsementsfrom the LA Times and the Washington Post.
(13:37):
Bret, do you think we've turned a cornerhere on media in terms of the importance
it plays in elections andwhere candidates are gonna go.
>> John H. Cochrane (13:43):
I just want to add to that and
not just the carefully scriptedword salad that came out of Kamala,
the I think he won the election whenhe went to McDonald's and served fries.
[LAUGH] What a brilliant item, butplease, Brad, I'm sorry for interrupting.
>> Bret Stephens (13:57):
No, I mean, I agree, and I think that without getting too specific,
mainstream media did not acquititself particularly well.
I thought it was hilarious that atthe Washington Post they were gnashing
their teeth at the lack of an endorsement,which number one just exhibited.
(14:21):
If there was any doubt thatthe paper was stuffed with left wing
partisans masquerading as journalists,but also because it was
impossible to read the Washington Postwithout noticing that every
article was essentiallyan advertisement for Kamala Harris.
They were reporting onan America that exists
(14:45):
in an acela corridor, but nowhere else.
Everyone else, in their view,as I was reading accounts, sounded like or
was treated as a person in an Amazoniantribe that had recently been
discovered by the anthropologistsof the mainstream media.
(15:06):
Who, were studying them forclues about their system of taboos and
shamans and so forth and so on.
Whereas, the rest of Americaunderstands that as regular America.
And I really am hoping thatthis is a sorry for the cliche,
a come to Jesus moment fora lot of mainstream media
(15:28):
outlets that I don'tthink fully appreciate,
the extent to which they puttheir biases on display,
in what should be straightup news reporting that their
understanding of America isinhibited by their own background.
It would be nice, I would say,if they sort of more fully internalize
(15:55):
the point of DEI seminars,which tell them to.
Check their biases at the door and
examine the sort ofsystemic worldviews that
they have in order todo something about the.
Bias is not even the wrong,it's not even the right word.
(16:18):
It's an entire Weltanschauung.
There's a word for Niall,
a whole worldview that cannotsee past its own parapets.
And I agree that this is nowgonna be an occasion for
a lot of the sort of newer andmore intriguing,
(16:40):
different idiosyncraticmedia voices to expand,
diversify what they're doing.
Encroach in traditional areas of coveragethat mainstream outlets have more or
less dominated even foreign newsreporting, not just the cultural stuff,
that actually makes it an exciting andpregnant time.
(17:03):
I mean, look, I think peopleknow that I voted for Kamala.
I made that public,I describe myself as the world's most
reluctant Kamala voter,and I can go into that.
But this is one of those singularmoments of creative destruction in
American life which actually goesfar to explain the resilience and
(17:26):
adaptability of American institutions,not their weakness or vulnerability.
>> Niall Ferguson (17:34):
Can I suggest something about this and then HR you must come in.
But this is really a question foryou, Brad.
It strikes me what's interesting aboutthe Trump campaign is that it combined
the traditional, I mean, the hamburgerstunt was old school politics.
The rallies are almosta 19th century style of
(17:56):
campaigning with the novel,in particular the memes.
I was impressed at how fast the Trumpcampaign was able to get the memes out,
particularly towards the endwhen things were getting kind
of funny after the Madison Square Gardenevent, the rally,
(18:19):
when a comedian made a joke aboutPuerto Rico a as a garbage island.
Within just hours, Trump was ina garbage truck in Wisconsin and
delivered an entire speechin the garbage man's vest.
>> H.R. McMaster (18:36):
And he got an assist from President Biden with that, though,
too, who.
>> Niall Ferguson (18:39):
Completely significant arrow, yeah.
And can we just sparea moment to think of Peter?
>> Bret Stephens (18:46):
[CROSSTALK] Look, this is not data, it's anecdote.
But I was partly informed in thiselection, I'm not on TikTok.
I'm actually, I'm for banning TikTok,but that's another story.
But the number of memes I got frommy younger children, by the way,
(19:06):
whose politics move in various directions,was really stacked.
I wouldn't have known kind of halfof what was going on were it not for
these things constantlybeing forward to me,
either by my kids who are older teenagers,or by their friends.
There was just an entire worldof discourse, usually mockery,
(19:31):
mocking, funny, ironic, andoften very, very smart.
That was completely missedby the sort of boring
earnestness that describedmost mainstream commentary.
The nation is on the line, etc.
(19:55):
It was, I mean, one of the thingsabout Kamala's campaign and
the entire liberal establishmentbehind her, just how boring it was.
You just kind of went, God, yes,I'm gonna eat my broccoli again.
And people don't like broccoli.
>> Niall Ferguson (20:13):
But, Bret, weren't you energized by what can be,
unburdened by what has been?
Wasn't that.
>> Bret Stephens (20:18):
Well, that's exactly, I saw people playing it,
like doing tunes on the piano.
It just gleeful mockery of the unburned.
And by the way, just one point here.
We have to stop andconsider and marvel at what
a spectacularly incompetentcandidate Kamala Harris was.
(20:42):
And this was should not havebeen a surprise to anyone.
I wrote a column back in July.
She's a terrible manager.
She had a dreadful officeas vice president.
She ran one of the most hilariouslyincompetent campaigns in 2019.
She communicated a certainsense of unearned entitlement.
(21:02):
And this is the person that the Democratsinstantly anointed as their preferred
candidate, and people are surprisedshe lost, I don't know why.
>> John H. Cochrane (21:10):
But the party line switched overnight,
including your newspaper, about howwonderful she was [COUGH] all of a sudden.
>> Bret Stephens (21:16):
Well, I would say it was like that scene seen in 1984.
We've always been atwar against East Asia.
I mean, Euro Asia, whatever.
>> John H. Cochrane (21:23):
What was hilarious is hers was the campaign of joy, remember?
The most sanctimonious joy I've ever seen.
You have to remember the old joke,
how many progressives does ittake to change a light bulb?
That kind of humor really isn'tappropriate in this situation you know.
>> Niall Ferguson (21:38):
Okay, HR I go.
HR, I'm sorry, we're having.
>> H.R. McMaster (21:41):
That's okay, this isn't really my thing.
It's okay, it's all right.
>> Niall Ferguson (21:44):
But it really is.
>> H.R. McMaster (21:47):
This sort of thing ain't my.
>> Niall Ferguson (21:48):
No, no, no, wait, wait, I've got a great question.
>> [LAUGH]>> Niall Ferguson: Please,
I wanna ask this question.
So an important part of the Harrisstrategy was to get people
who had been in the firstTrump administration and
parade them in front of the mediadenouncing Donald Trump.
And I don't think that's ever been,
(22:09):
it's never been done on that scalebefore because it could probably never
have been done on that scale before,and this too, failed.
Now HR You've not been uncritical ofPresident Trump in your most recent book,
but you weren't part ofthe circus of denunciation.
Just give us your thoughts about why thatfailed so completely to move voters.
(22:32):
If anything, it seems to have backfired.
I mean,
Liz Cheney, who knew that Liz Cheneywould not mobilize Democratic voters?
Something funny there?
>> H.R. McMaster (22:41):
Well, you know,
I think the American people saw whatJohn kind of chronicled and we've all
been talking about were the variousavenues of attack against Donald Trump.
And of course, this is what theysay he's going to do, right?
He's going to engage in lawfare and hedoesn't help his own case because he talks
about retribution andall that sort of thing.
But I think people just kind of rejectedit because they saw the hypocrisy
(23:03):
in casting him as a fascist orthe analogies to Hitler, really.
I mean, soI just think that it failed because
they jumped the sharkkind of on it in terms of
the vitriol and the apoplectic warnings.
(23:24):
But then also I just thinkit's bad practice, Niall.
I mean, it's one of the reasons why Iwrote the book the way I did is because I
wanted to tell the story, but
nobody needs like washed upgenerals telling them how to vote.
And, and I think that this effortto drag the military into partisan
politics with like the lists of maybeall the national security officials,
(23:44):
it really was, who was signed on to thatletter or to get retired generals and
so forth to endorse really inthe capacity of a retired general.
It's not a new practice, but
I think it's particularly dangerousthese days because of how.
Polarized we've been and the need for
the military to transcendthe partisan politics.
>> Donald Trump (24:06):
To maintain the confidence of the American people across
the political spectrum because dependingon what the politics of particular
households are, we need the best youngAmericans to serve in our armed forces.
Maybe today more than anytime in recent history.
So I was concerned about that trend and
have talked extensively aboutthis in the last month or so
(24:28):
that we have to keep the militaryout of the kind of the vortex
[LAUGH] that is pulling so many Americansapart within other institutions.
And yeah,I hope we've hit the apogee of it.
And as Bret and all of you know,I mean, this is not new.
I remember Bill Clinton amassing kind ofthe list of flag officers generals and
(24:51):
admirals to endorse him whenhe first ran for president.
But I think it's just bad practice.
>> Bill Whalen (24:57):
HR you're the only one in this call who has been
hired by Donald Trump.
So why don't we spend a couple minutestalking about who Trump is gonna hire
the next few weeks.
I'd like to get the panel's thoughtson who his most important pick is.
Who you'd like to see in say the StateDepartment or the Defense Department.
Then I also wanna get your thoughtson how he's gonna keep this team of,
shall we say,very large personalities together.
Elon Musk, Robert Kennedy,Vivek Ramaswamy and so forth.
(25:19):
So, anybody wanna go on the picks forDefense and Secretary of State?
>> H.R. McMaster (25:23):
Hey, well, I'll just start here.
I just think it's the overall team andhow well that team can work together.
And by the team, I mean the defensediplomatic and economic teams.
Because today's competitions are sointertwined and
demand the integration of allelements of national power
with efforts of like mindedpartners internationally.
(25:47):
And so I think he's got somegreat people to pick from.
If you think about could it beTom Cotton in Defense paired with
Bill Hagerty in State or in treasury.
And I think that Lighthizer islike minded with them in terms of
countering Chinese economic aggression,for example.
I mean, John, I think would not probablyagree with a lot of his policies, but
(26:11):
I think that's probably coming.
And then of course you have to be,
I think maybe a bit more concernedwith the unconfirmed positions.
I think especiallynational security advisor.
That is such a critical job,
because you don't want someone inthat job who misunderstands his or
her role as a person to advocate forkind of their preferred policies.
(26:31):
You need somebody who's going toguard Donald Trump's independence of
judgment and present him fairly withthe views of all the cabinet officials.
And others who can help him revise hisassessment and make the best possible
decisions among multiple courses ofaction that are presented to him.
So, hey, I think it's worthwatching very closely, obviously,
(26:54):
who comes into these positions, because Ithink it'll be indicative of whether or
not they're going to help Donald Trumpmake the best possible decisions.
Or they're either gonna be at warwith themselves, which should be try.
They try to avoid or bring people inwho are pursuing their own agendas.
>> Niall Ferguson (27:14):
Well, Tom Cotton says he's not doing it, so he's out.
I'm not sure what your expectation is,Bret, but
let me offer a hypothesis aboutthe national security team that
there are two possible Trumpadministrations we could guess.
There's one that's kind of Reaganite andpretty hawkish,
(27:35):
that might include Robert O'Brien,it might include Mike Pompeo.
And that would be a nationalsecurity team who would recommend
exerting greater military pressureon Russia to try to end the war.
That would certainly supportIsrael in its efforts to degrade
Iran's nuclear program andwould probably be quite hawkish on Taiwan.
(28:00):
But there's another scenario in whichTrump doesn't pick those people,
but goes with people who are closerto J.D Vance's thinking.
Elon Musk's thinking on Ukrainedon't really want there to be
a strong independent Ukraine and
probably don't really want a showdownin the Middle East or in China either.
(28:24):
So I think it'll be really interesting tosee which Trump administration emerges,
one that's Reaganite orone that's actually more isolationist.
Bret, do you have any thoughts on this?
>> Bret Stephens (28:33):
No, I think, look,
the answer this is maybe the most decisivequestion about the Trump administration.
I think one of the reasons why people,
when they think about the first Trumpadministration, feel fairly good
about it is that the rhetoric was oftenwild, but the policy was pretty good.
(28:54):
I mean, people said, or excuse me,Trump was Putin's poodle.
But in fact, the administrationdid more to oppose Russia
than either Obama had before it orcertainly Biden did,
at least until the invasion of Ukraine.
(29:14):
But that, I think, had a lot to dowith the fact that he was surrounded
by advisors like HR or his secret,his Mike Pompeo and so on.
What you hear from the newkind of Trump dispensation
are people who are much moreisolationist in their leanings,
(29:36):
kind of see Russia as a potentialfuture ally in a chessboard to contain.
The Chinese see Russia's, in a sense,like almost the opposite of China
in the early 1970s, as a piece that canbe pried away from the Chinese orbit.
Elbridge Colby represents this view, and
(29:57):
I think he's gonna play some significantrole in a second Trump term.
So we'll find out very quicklywhere Trump intends to go and
just how much influence JDhas in those deliberations.
I also, knowing JD slightly andat least watching his trajectory,
I wonder whether he has any fixedconvictions at all in this respect,
(30:21):
beyond his immediate political ambitions.
So we'll find out.
>> Bill Whalen (30:26):
John economics.
>> John H. Cochrane (30:27):
Hello,
I can't resist opining on thingsthat aren't in my wheelhouse.
I think you guys are right.
There is a question when you getempowered, rhetoric reads reality.
So they're certainly not going to cut andrun like Biden did in Afghanistan.
I think that lesson is pretty clear.
Don't do like that in Ukraine.
Trump is also a good negotiator andhe understands you get a better deal
(30:50):
when the other side feels under pressurethan following Biden when you announce.
All we want to do is negotiate andget the hell out of here.
So it's not obvious thatwhen you face reality,
the right thing to do with Ukraine issit down and say, let's negotiate now,
while Putin feels he has the other hand.
And I do think even channeling J.D Vance,his people fought these wars and
they were not very success.
(31:11):
But the lesson, I still like the PowellDoctrine, you either fight it to win or
you don't fight it at all.
So fight it to win, especially in Israel,might be what comes out.
We'll see what comes out there.
So economics.
>> Bret Stephens (31:23):
So very briefly.
>> John H. Cochrane (31:24):
Please try.
>> Bret Stephens (31:26):
Look, I think the psychology of being seen as the winner,
matters a lot to Trump.
Simple as that is,he does not wanna look like a loser.
And I think if there's onelesson in Afghanistan,
which in many ways was his brainchild,
that departure is America looked weak andhe does not wanna look weak.
So a kind of a cut and run from Ukrainethat leads to the same sort of debacle
(31:51):
in Kiev that we saw in Kabul threeyears ago is not gonna be something.
He is not gonna be a prospecthe is going to savor.
>> John H. Cochrane (32:00):
Exactly, so let me turn to economics.
This is an interesting one andcuz I think there is gonna be a tension,
there's a lot of people in the wings andin the Trump orbit who are very good,
free market, free trade,deregulation, economists.
And I think the vibe with Elon Musk is avibe not that what we need to do is erect
(32:21):
huge protective barriers and bringback a museum of 1950s manufacturing.
But we need spaceships to Mars, we need tostop being a country where, as Musk says,
it takes longer to get the permits tolaunch a rocket than it does to design,
build and light the damn rocket.
And I think that that kind ofthing happens under the radar
screen that's where good stuffhappens outside of rhetoric.
(32:44):
So there may be,we'll see who wins, there's,
of course the protectioniststhrow up the trade barriers view,
and there's gonna bean interesting debate [LAUGH].
HR's book, wonderful book,brought some of the elements of that
debate from the first time around,which side I hope prevails.
(33:04):
One can do things that look good in publicwithout doing a lot of damage in private.
So you can have sort of show tariffsthat don't really matter that much to
the economy butwhere I'm hopeful, of course,
is that the team deregulate wins andreally gets the US Economy going.
>> Niall Ferguson (33:21):
Well, there's obviously a Wall Street element to this story,
which is very important because someof your fellow economists, John, have
been running around warning that Trumpwill add even more to the deficit and
therefore the federal debt, and thereforethe bond market is just waiting to pounce.
(33:42):
And so it kind of matters who the treasurysecretary is under these circumstances and
we hear names of eminent Wall Streetfigures like Scott Besant mentioned.
I see the transition involvesCantor Fitzgerald's, Howard Lutnick,
never forget that Wall Street issomething Trump cares a lot about.
(34:04):
He'll be consulting Wall Street people andhe won't want economic measures
that cause the stock market to swoon,never mind the bond market.
So I think that's important to rememberwhen you're trying to figure out
the direction of economic policy.
The recollection people have of the Trumpeconomy in the first term was good and
(34:25):
with good reason.
And part of, I think what will happenhere is that the protectionist
elements will have to coexistwith the Wall Street folks, and
the protectionists won't be allowed to dostuff that is gonna scare the markets.
As HR knows from personal experience,
(34:46):
transitions a kind of extraordinary timeand an administration's a huge thing.
I don't think us ordinary folkwho've never been in the government
can fully comprehendthe sheer scale of it,
the sheer size of the federalexecutive branch, and
the kind of insanity of trying to staff itin the aftermath of an election campaign.
(35:10):
That's the thing that alwaysmakes my head spin a bit,
that there are not just hundreds butthousands of positions to be filled.
And, of course, the people in thetransition team are currently under siege
from all those many people who fancythemselves the next HR McMaster,
bombarding them with,I don't know, strategy documents,
(35:30):
memoranda explaining how they, andthey alone can bring China to its knees.
So it's hard to convey on a show likeGoodfellas just how completely crazy it
is, right, HR?
>> H.R. McMaster (35:41):
Yeah, well, of course, I came in after the initial transition,
which I heard was very chaotic, but a lotof good work got done in that transition
with some people who have beenworking with the transition teams.
They put together these landing teamsthat go into each of the departments and
agencies who assess, really,based on what they believe that
the president's priorities are,the current state of affairs and
(36:03):
make recommendations about the transitionthat's gonna be happening very soon.
I think the campaign is much betterorganized than it was in 2016,
which may have been a low bar, but
a lot of good work got done because theybrought in people like Matt Pottinger.
Who actually laid the foundation for a fundamental shift in
Trump administration, policy andapproach to North Korea, as well as China.
(36:27):
And on the China shift,I think it was the most significant
shift in US foreign policysince the end of the cold war.
So I do think they are getting deluged,as you mentioned, Niall, but
I guess hopefully they're adept atseparating the wheat from the chaff and
getting the most important ideasin front of the president elect
(36:48):
before he gets sworn in in January.
>> John H. Cochrane (36:51):
I'm still a little worried that we're missing the big story,
which is not Trump gets elected.
He's acknowledged the president,he appoints his people,
the Senate confirms them, we implementpolicy with interagency memos.
And this is Bret has a bigger fingeron the pulse, you're in that bubble.
Are the Democrats just goingto sit back quietly, or
(37:13):
is this gonna be the resistance,Russia collusion?
If they get the House, are they going tosay, no, we're not certifying the election
and inside the agencies, is it gonna bethe same kind of we refuse to go along.
Just how much complete chaos do yousee coming out of the Democrats in
(37:34):
the weeks after the inauguration?
>> Bret Stephens (37:36):
Well, it's a wonderful question, and I have been urging,
as I did in my column yesterday,that the Democrats understand
how utterly counterproductiveresistance politics is.
I mean, this is actually the oxygenoff of which a political figure like
Donald Trump and his movement feed,because, after all, what is their brand?
(38:00):
We are up against an entrenched,secretive, manipulative, dishonest,
and disgusting deep state that istrying to stop us at every turn.
And then Democrats helpfully obligethem by behaving like a dishonest,
disgusting, deceitful,manipulative deep state, right?
So, Democrats need to find a wayto conduct normal politics against
(38:24):
Trump in the way that oppositionparties do without attempting
those kind of extra legal ordubious maneuvers that have typified
the way they've treated Trumpsince almost the very beginning.
The problem is,they're the scorpion that can't help but
sting the frog, there's somethingthere that is gonna be very
(38:48):
resistant to learning the lessonof their serial defeats.
I think the default positionof much of the media is Trump
is a mortal threat to ourRepublican experiment.
He must be stopped everything he does is
presumptively criminal orgross or apocalyptic.
(39:12):
They have a hard time thinkingoutside of those terms,
it's a function of the sort oftheir milieu, their education.
And so I suspect, even though it'sagainst their own best interest and
should be against their lived experience,as they like to say,
that they're gonna conduct exactlythe same kind of warfare against this
(39:35):
administration than they did the last one.
Maybe this time the grace periodwill be three days rather than two.
>> Bill Whalen (39:42):
Bret, have you met Gavin Newsom, have you met our new senator?
>> Bret Stephens (39:47):
Adam Schiff.
>> Bill Whalen (39:48):
Who led impeachment, does California need to secede?
>> Bret Stephens (39:52):
How soon can it secede is my question but
I say it not because I think.
It would be a mutually good thing for
all of North America let a socialistrepublic in California take root,
and the rest of us will livea slightly more contented life.
>> Bill Whalen (40:13):
Okay, well, I mentioned Newsom because if you go to the betting
markets right now, he is at the topof the betting markets right now.
And Bret, everything that you laid outin that really good column in which you
offered advice to the winner of theelection, that's the anti-Newsom in terms
of showing humility, not coming overthe big ideas, going for modest solutions.
That's all the stuff thatGavin Newsom does not do.
>> Bret Stephens (40:31):
Well, I mean, and again,
it would not surprise me ifhe ends up being the nominee.
But parties, l think of the DemocraticParty between 1980 and 1992.
I mean, they were soconvinced they were right.
And it took the Democratic LeadershipCouncil, it took a figure like
(40:54):
Bill Clinton, and it took three stinging,landslide defeats before
they started to think that theyneeded to reorder their priorities.
The salvation for the Democratic Party,I think, in the end is gonna
come from someone like Andy Beshear,some centrist southern governor
(41:16):
who talks the language of normalAmericans and understands just how
toxic the current culture of liberallife is to Democratic fortunes.
>> Bill Whalen (41:26):
Okay, Neil Friedman, 28, or Josh Shapiro, 28?
>> Niall Ferguson (41:30):
Yeah, well, I don't wanna think about 2028 for
at least a year.
I'd like a holiday fromAmerican electoral politics,
can you just take a leaf outof the old country's book?
Multi-week long campaigns,get the election done in a day,
and then get back to the seriousbusiness of football and beer.
(41:54):
I think America suffersfrom too much politics.
I've come to the conclusion thatit's actually got out of control and
you've developed what might bethe first addiction to politics
that has been seen inthe annals of history.
Because politics shouldn't be thiscompelling, it shouldn't be this engaging.
(42:15):
When they invented the Internet,I don't think anybody foresaw
that its principal use after,of course, pornography,
would be the consumption of news thatdoom scrolling through election results.
I wonder what happened in Pennsylvania.
I mean, it's just not normal, can wejust not talk about politics for a bit?
(42:37):
I actually genuinely don'tcare who's running in 2028,
I don't want to have to thinkabout it until about 2027.
>> John H. Cochrane (42:44):
I agree with you, let's not talk about personalities and
not talk about which team is up andwhich team is down.
I do wanna ask all of you guys,let's look at the bigger picture,
this is a stunning rebuke for Democrats.
Is it finally the turning of the tideof this great movement that started
maybe in the French Revolution,picked up some steam with Marx, and
(43:08):
currently is paternalistic,authoritarian, aristocratic?
And it's quite authoritarian, we mustrule in the name of the little people.
There's this word salad of propagandawhich I can't tell whether they
cynically don't believe it anymore,the first sign of failing, or whether
they actually believe the craziness thatcomes out of the party line every week.
(43:33):
I was very amused that HR told us thathis predecessors called him to tell him
that the number one strategic challengeof the United States was climate change.
And sounded like they actually,sorry for the digression, viewing ever
larger government, ever larger running ofthings, we're just so close to nirvana.
(43:55):
All we need is $30,000 home buyercredit and forgive your college loans.
And one more little tax exemption forthis, that, and the other thing,
five more pages on the environmentalassessment report, and ready to go.
Now Europe has figured out they'restarting to realize this killed our
growth andwe need to do something about it.
(44:18):
Is America finally figuring out that thisdescent into now it's identity politics,
but whatever is, that this great movementof the ever larger government of
the left is over andsome new thing is happening?
There's Giorgia Meloni in Italy,there's Milei in Argentina.
Apparently, the Labor government inthe UK has managed to screw itself up in
(44:40):
about three weeks flat.
Or is it back to normal, the samefight we've been having for the last-
>> Niall Ferguson (44:46):
Well, John,
I don't think this electionsaw a decisive vote for
the kind of economics that you believe in.
There's not much there, particularlyon the fiscal side, that I can find.
Unless you believe the kindalast minute idea that Elon Musk
is going to set up the doge andcut $2 trillion from the federal budget.
(45:11):
Now that came in pretty late in the day,and
I'm not sure how many voterspaid attention to it.
But it's worth thinking about becauseup until this point in his career,
Donald Trump has not been notable fortaking our fiscal problems seriously.
I think the entry of Elon Musk intoAmerican politics is the single most
significant thing that happened in thiselection because it's a phenomenal
(45:35):
game changer.
When the owner of one of the majorsocial media platforms and
the single most important entrepreneurin America comes down unequivocally
on one side politically andthen campaigns with President Trump and
spends election night sitting with Trump,obviously talking about what they do next.
(45:58):
But what I can't tell is how muchElon we're really going to get.
If we're getting $2 trillionoff the federal budget,
that is Javier Milei territory,that is Argentina.
But I just don't know if we'regonna get it, be interesting.
>> John H. Cochrane (46:10):
But it was particularly interesting cuz he
had to do it.
He recognized the federal agencies outto get him for his political views,
and if he wanted to keep his business,he needed to have Trump win.
The same way Trump needed to runbecause otherwise they were gonna throw
him in jail.
So it's quite significant.
I think he brings a voice and
a persona to a movement that wasalready quite well underway in
(46:34):
the little technocratic bubbles [LAUGH]of Republican economic politics.
But, yeah, butthat is something that's happening.
And this was not a policy election,this was a vibes election,
I don't think we'regonna cut taxes on tips.
There wasn't policy proposals, butthere was a vibe of, we like America,
(46:54):
we reject the 1619 project,we want growth, we want entrepreneurship.
That vibe can take its expressionin policy when time comes.
There were no detailed 15 pointsTrump policy plans to look at, and
let's hope the vibe wins.
>> Bill Whalen (47:12):
HR, a question for you, can you tell us how this election is being
perceived in the governments in Moscow,Tehran, and Beijing?
>> H.R. McMaster (47:19):
Well, I think what they're gonna try to do is to take
advantage of the continuingdivisions in the country.
And a lot of it will have to do withwhether or not Democrats heed Bret's
advice, or if they go back intothe opposition and resistance mode.
Because that's a gift,it's a gift to our adversaries who wanna
perpetuate the divisions that reduce ourconfidence in who we are as a people and
(47:41):
our democratic principles,institutions, and processes.
As we mentioned at the outset,
the best thing that could have happenedwas this kind of a decisive victory.
Because, really,what Russia, in particular,
wanted is large numbers of Americansto doubt the legitimacy of the result.
And they're not gonna get that, at least.
So I think what's reallyimportant is how we behave.
Because the Russians, the Chinese, others,
(48:03):
they don't createdivisions in our society.
They take the existing divisions and
try to broaden them further in an effortto reduce our will to contest really what
is their mutual effort to tear down theexisting rules of international discourse.
And replace them with a new setof rules that are sympathetic to
their authoritarian forms of governmentand in China's case, especially,
(48:26):
their status mercantilist economic model.
So a lot of it,we have agency over the United States, and
I'm hoping that the two speeches we heard,President Trump's speech,
as he won the election, and KamalaHarris's speech, will be the kind of tone
going forward, but we probably all oughtto be skeptical about that, right?
(48:47):
And maybe do our part in making the case.
If we're coming together around an agendawe can agree on, we're talking about a lot
of divisions or differences andwithin maybe a Trump administration.
But I'm sure this is gonna beprofoundly positive for all Americans.
I mean, how about deregulation, right?
Regardless of how much you can cut out ofthe budget and try get back to a sensible
(49:09):
approach to spending, there's gonnabe a heck of a lot of deregulation.
Which can get to what we all,I think would agree is the best way or
the easiest way maybe toreduce the deficit and
begin to address the debt issues,which is economic growth.
>> Bret Stephens (49:25):
And compensate for ruinous trade policy with
sky high tariffs on core trade partners.
>> H.R. McMaster (49:35):
Right, [LAUGH] and then also energy security, Bret.
I mean, what other areas do youfeel optimistic about regardless
of what debates occur withinthe Trump administration or
what resistance there is to Trump?
>> Bret Stephens (49:49):
Look, I mean, an administration that fundamentally
understands what it is liketo conduct business in
America is somethingthe country sorely needs.
I've been saying for a long time thatthere are essentially two economies in
America, there's an economyof words which I inhabit.
(50:10):
That's the economy of lawyers, academics,
rules makers in the bureaucracies,publishers and
so on, and there is an economy of things.
Real estate guys, truckers,big manufacturers and so on, and
the economy of words, whichincreasingly is the governing class in
(50:32):
America has no clue what it'sto be in the economy of things.
Because when I decide wherea semicolon should go,
there isn't a government bureaucratasking me to justify the semicolon
in a seven-page document so that it canmeet with his approval in Washington.
(50:53):
But if you're running even a mid-sizedcompany in America, not even a mid-sized
company in America, the land ofregulation that you inhabit is fearsome.
And I like the fact that Trump knowsin his bones from having live this in
New York,what it means to build a hotel in and
get the permitting that you need for thekind of televisions that you're gonna get.
(51:19):
What it means to deal witha $5 increase in the minimum
wage which cuts into razor thin margins.
I mean, all these sort of questionsTrump kind of gets in his kish kiss, so
to speak.
And that I think is gonnabe a general positive in
the way that Trump approacheshis decision-making.
(51:40):
I think he has some economicideas which are terrible and
dangerous, I mentioned his own->> H.R. McMaster: 60% tariffs on China,
10%.
Mercantilism and so on, but on the other hand,
the other thing that I look forward to islook, Trump does understand negotiation.
And I don't think we would have seenEurope even move fraction in the direction
(52:05):
of higher defense budgets if it hadn'tbeen accompanied by that threat.
We're gonna get ourselves out of NATO,the stick has to be visible.
And under Democratic administrations,
it's never visible becauseJoe Biden has literally, except for
when he was raking in money from speechesfor four years during his sabbatical
(52:29):
from government, has never had a jobas far as I know in the private sector.
Kamala Harris has never hada job in the private sector.
Most Democrats I knowhave never had one and
they certainly haven't hadjobs in the things economy.
Which is what makes America,traditionally, what made America great,
(52:50):
and it's what appealed to peopleabout capitalism, so to speak,
the feeling like Elon Musk makes stuff,and that stuff by the way is kinda cool.
>> John H. Cochrane (53:00):
But I think there's hope here,
the Democrats are also findingout that regulation is a problem.
They found it out when they wanted toconnect windmills and solar panels to
the grid and figured out it's gonnatake ten years to get the permit, and
that's when the climate catastrophe hits.
They figured out finally that housing,the problem with house prices is it takes
(53:20):
too long to get the permitsto build up housing, so
I think there is this will even fromthe left to do something about that.
I wanna pivot just a little toanother optimistic note which I
wanna tee up for discussion.
What's gonna happen politically?
Trump will either go afterhis enemies using, he'll say,
(53:42):
look at all these wonderful tools oflawfare, handy for me to use them.
If that happens, I am optimistic it willturn the Democrats into sudden come to
Jesus civil libertarians.
Wait a minute, the Supreme Court'sprotections that you can't prosecute
a former president for think things he didin office, that was a wonderful thing.
(54:02):
[LAUGH] We need to, yeah, free speechall of a sudden, the First Amendment,
that's really important whenTrump tries to use censorship.
Alternatively, Trump could,as you mentioned,
pardon Biden,stop prosecuting the Hunter Biden case,
although that one actually has somelegal basis, unlike the previous ones.
But when do we put the lawfare aside andsay no,
(54:23):
we're not gonna bring gunsto the next fist fight?
Either of the two seemsa optimist way that eventually
we put this thing back in the closet.
What do you guys think?
>> Bret Stephens (54:38):
Look, I mean,
I think the lesson of the first Trumpadministration is Trump has one enemy
that's even bigger than the deep state orthe Democratic media complex.
That enemy is himself.
Right.This is a man who just can't help but
step on his own dick,to use an old expression.
(54:58):
And so the instincts forretribution, vengeance for
the kind of personal paranoiathat he seems to display,
that's just an irrepressibleside of his character.
Which is why one of the reasons I haddeep misgivings about him even in
(55:21):
this second run, because there'sa current of darkness there,
I mean, there's just no getting around it.
And I think that came out when you saw somany of the people who had been
in his inner circle describe the sort ofshambolic ways in which he ran his shop.
(55:43):
So we'll find out, but my experience of
septuagenarian men is thatthey are who they are.
>> Niall Ferguson (55:53):
Can I just add one structural rather than ad hominem point,
it's a second term?
And second terms are differentfrom first terms.
And we should think a bit more aboutthat because it feels to me as if
Democrats are so used to hyperventilatingabout his being Hitler or
(56:13):
Mussolini or whatever it is.
That they omit the sort of base case,which is that it will have the same
qualities that all second terms,even Reagan's second term had.
Second terms are often quite disastrous.
Of course, Nixon's was the supremelydisastrous second term.
Win a landslide and then descend into themaelstrom of Watergate and resignation.
(56:37):
But it's hard to think ofa really terrific second term.
If you go through the list,think back to George W Bush's second term,
which ended in the maelstrom ofthe global financial crisis.
So I offer that.
>> Bret Stephens (56:51):
Reagan had a very good second term, even despite Iran Contra.
>> Niall Ferguson (56:55):
Well, I was gonna say Iran congregate wasn't exact exactly
great fun.
And so it feels to me as if the basecase is just that, it's a second term.
And although there's glad confidentmorning in Trump land that I confess to
indulging in some of that myselfbecause I just couldn't abide the idea
of Kamala Harris as president.
(57:16):
I do not know how you could bring yourselfto vote for Kamala Harris as president.
I have enjoyed the defeatof the woke progressive
wing of the Democratic Party hugely.
But glad confident morning in politicstends not to last terribly long.
And it'll be a second term,and by the midterms,
it'll kind of feel like we'rein the lame duck phase.
(57:39):
So give me a sense of how canthis avoid just being another of
those second terms whichsort of goes off the mill.
>> Bret Stephens (57:48):
And it isn't a second term, it's a second term in the sense that
he's constitutionallyprohibited from running again,
although he has in the choice of J.D.Vance, clearly an heir apparent.
And who knows if Don Jr Willbe part of the 2028 ticket.
(58:10):
I don't think that's out of the question.
But because he's coming in for the firsttime with an unmistakable mandate,
there's no question this is nota fluke of know which counties voted
where that got him into the,into office the first term.
And because there's a certain kind oflike, there's a sense that this is
(58:31):
like the age of Trump in the way that wehad the age of Reagan or the age of FDR,
that there's gonna be more energy andinitiative this time around.
I mean, one of the reasons secondterms often fail is because the team
is exhausted by the time they kindof slink into their fifth year.
(58:52):
This does not seem to methe case right now at all.
They seem very energetic.
They have a very clear idea of whatit is that they want to accomplish.
They have, it seems like the legislativewherewithal to accomplish those things.
So it's not I acknowledge I have not readmuch about Grover Cleveland's second
(59:15):
term to know what that was like,but I just don't think you can so
easily compare it to Obama orGeorge W Bush's second term.
>> Bill Whalen (59:26):
I recommend Troy Sinek's really excellent biography on Cleveland,
which is just great readingabout the non consecutive terms.
HR Thomas, up here.
Why don't you take us out ona decidedly optimistic note?
>> H.R. McMaster (59:37):
Well, I think what we've been talking about is the effectiveness of
a second Trump administration, and I thinkthat will depend in large measure on what
Epictetus observed, this is whatis most important to understand.
Well, the role assigned you.
Will the president and
the people he hires understand whattheir roles are under the Constitution?
And it will also depend, I think,
(59:58):
on the three disciplines thatthe stoic philosopher has identified.
Will President Trump havethe discipline of perception?
Will he be able to understand the complexchallenges we're facing, take in a broad
range of views and multiple options andmake effective decisions?
I write in my book that he's capable ofdoing that, but of course that depends on
people around him understandingtheir roles and serving him well.
(01:00:20):
The second is,does he have discipline of action?
Will he have the organizational leadershipcapabilities to be able to drive
the effect of change in the organization?
He's not one really to get into thedetails of who's responsible for what and
so forth.
But will the chief of staff,will the national security adviser,
will the national economic the NEC?
Will these people help him beeffective in the discipline of action,
(01:00:45):
getting things done?
And then the third, andBret mentioned this in particular.
Will he have the discipline of will?
Will he be able to ignore the noise?
Will he be able to take Aristotle's adviceand focus on what he can control so that
he can get as much done as he can and stopbecoming the antagonist in his own story?
So these are all, I think, [LAUGH]aspects of this transition in the Trump
(01:01:10):
presidency to observe andassess and evaluate.
And as we all mentioned here,one of the early indicators of the degree
of which the president will be ableto exhibit these disciplines will
be the people he appointsto some critical positions.
>> Bill Whalen (01:01:27):
And we'll leave it there.
Bret Stephens, thanks for joining us,good luck writing in the weeks ahead.
Plenty of there for you to write about.
>> Bret Stephens (01:01:33):
Thanks a lot, thanks for having me, guys.
>> Bill Whalen (01:01:35):
Since we went on way past our scheduled time with our block,
we're not gonna do a B block andwe're not gonna do lightning rounds.
So this is it.
But a viewing note,
we will be back with the show shortlybefore the American Thanksgiving and
our guest is gonna be formerSecretary of State Mike Pompeo.
So I imagine we're gonna talkabout the transition and hire.
So you don't wanna miss that.
And in December,I think we're gonna do a mailbag show.
(01:01:56):
So if you have questions forthe good fellows, send them in.
And you do that by goingto the following address.
That is Hoover.org/AskGoodFellows,once again,
Hoover.org/AskGoodfellows onbehalf of the GoodFellows,
Sir Niall Ferguson,John Cochrane, H.R. McMaster.
Our guest today, Bret Stephens,we hope you enjoyed the conversation.
We appreciate your viewership.
(01:02:17):
Look forward to seeing you again soon.
Till then, take care, thanks for watching.
[MUSIC]
>> Presenter (01:02:25):
If you enjoyed this show and
are interested in watchingmore content featuring H.R.
McMaster, watch Battlegroundsalso available at hoover.org.
Well, I want to thank you all very much, this is great,
these are our friends.
We have thousands of friendson this incredible movement.
This was a movement likenobody's ever seen before.
And frankly, this was, I believe,
the greatest politicalmovement of all time.
(00:24):
There's ever been anything like thisin this country and maybe beyond.
>> Bill Whalen (00:30):
It's Thursday, November 7, 2024, and welcome back to GoodFellows,
a Hoover Institution broadcast examiningsocial, economic, political and
geopolitical concerns.
I'm Bill Whalen.
I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow,and I'll be your moderator today.
I'm pleased to report that I'm joinedby our full complement of Goodfellows,
as we jokingly refer to them.
That would include the historian Sir NiallFerguson, the economist John Cochrane, and
(00:52):
former presidential national securityadvisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.
And we're also joined today by New YorkTimes opinion columnist Bret Stephens.
Bret, thanks for coming on the show.
>> Bret Stephens (01:03):
Thanks for having me back.
>> Bill Whalen (01:04):
First, let's talk about the election in America as we record
the show on Thursday morning.
Donald Trump has collected312 electoral votes.
That's the most by a Republicansince George H.W Bush in 1988.
He won a majority of the popular vote, thefirst time that's happened since 2004 for
a Republican.
He has the Senate in his pocket.
(01:25):
He's on a path to get the Houseunder Republican control.
And consider this,Trump having won the popular vote,
having both branches of Congress,
we think Republicans having a majorityof state legislatures around America and
a majority of Supreme Court justicesappointed by Trump and George W Bush.
The last president in America to havethis situation when it came into office
(01:48):
was Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.
So we could say that Trump hasa rather advantageous situation.
Bret, I want you to begin and I want youto explain a column that you wrote for
the New York Times.
The headline a Party of Prigs and
Pontificators Suffersa humiliating Defeat.
Who are the prigs and pontificators?
>> Bret Stephens (02:04):
Well, it's the establishment of the Democratic Party.
This election was an extraordinarypersonal vindication for
President Trump, butit was also a stinging,
stunning, decisive repudiation of what
the Democratic Party underthis administration.
(02:27):
And really since Barack Obama'stime has become,
which is a party of a kindof incessant moralizing,
a dismissal of the everydayconcerns of the American people,
including orparticularly working class Americans.
A party that increasingly bends oradheres to a bizarre
(02:52):
set of cultural norms thatstrike Americans wrong.
A party that insists ona new kind of language,
terminology in everyday life that tomany of us just sounds Orwellian,
a party that is more interestedin dividing the country
(03:13):
into different identity groupsrather than uniting it or
overcoming those separate identities.
And Kamala Harris, fora variety of reasons, I think,
was the embodiment of thatversion of the Democratic Party.
And Americans turned againstit in exceptional numbers.
(03:37):
So this is one of those moments whennot only do you have to take stock of
what Donald Trump and the Republican Partywas able to achieve, but
I think liberals in some ofthe precincts I inhabit need to
really re examine how it isthat they conduct politics.
Because as it is, the only word forit is insufferable.
(04:00):
That's why I talked about pomposity andpriggishness.
And I guess I should have added forthe sake of alliteration,
piety, which is a big part ofthe new liberal dispensation.
>> Bill Whalen (04:16):
Niall, you wrote a column for the Free Press in which you talk
about, and I quote, the resurrection ofDonald J Trump, what is the resurrection?
>> Niall Ferguson (04:22):
Well, I actually wrote it's the only comeback.
It's not bigger than is the resurrection.
So the headline slightly wentfurther than I wanted to.
It's very hard to think of a politicalcomeback to match this in American
history, and I don't know.
>> Bill Whalen (04:39):
More than Nixon.
>> Niall Ferguson (04:40):
Well, yes, because Nixon was faced with
impeachment and destroyed at the end.
Well, in the middle,really, of his second term.
They tried to destroy Donald Trumpduring and after his first term,
and they tried to destroyhim every which way.
(05:03):
Let's not forgetthe assassination attempts,
one of which very nearly killed him.
Four criminal cases in oneof which he was convicted,
two impeachments during his first term,and so
many different lawsuits that when I triedto count them up, I really lost count.
>> H.R. McMaster (05:24):
And hey, Naill, I would just add the deliberate effort by
the media to take him down as,as you mentioned, like the, you know, the,
the NPR revelations,all that stuff, you know.
>> Niall Ferguson (05:34):
Well, Nixon, of course, had that.
And, andthe two presidents have much in common,
which is why Donald Trump was somethingof a fanboy of Nixon as a young man.
But, compared with whatwas thrown at Nixon,
what was thrown at Trumpwas a great deal worse.
And I think we thought when wewere talking about Trump back in
(05:56):
January of 2021,there was no possible way back for him.
I remember saying that, andnot only is he back, but
he didn't just scrape home,he crushed Kamala Harris
in a far more decisive outcomethan almost anybody predicted.
(06:17):
And this is the critical pointthat gets to Bret's point.
He destroyed The Obama vision ofa kind of rainbow coalition of
identity politics thatthe Republicans could never beat.
Donald Trump didn't just wina majority of white male voters.
He won a majority of Hispanic male voters,
(06:37):
he doubled his share of black male votes.
And so, he has not just scrapedhome as he did in 2016.
He's won decisively andlooks like he's led a Republican sweep.
I can't think of a political comebackin American history to match this.
(06:59):
And it's hard to think of anypundit who saw this coming.
Only the poly market predictionmarket got it right.
Every pollster massivelyunderstated the margin of victory.
And it's weird that we, we were takenin by that since they understated his
(07:20):
performance in the last two elections.
So I don't know why we didn'texpect them to do it again.
I went through a period ofanxiety about the election thing.
He is not gonna be decisive,it's gonna be another version of 2020 or
maybe even 2000.
But that was just because I was payingattention to pollsters instead of just
focusing on the poly market and preparingfor the Trump comeback, the resurrection.
>> John H. Cochrane (07:45):
Well, thank God it was decisive.
We've spent a year or two here onGoodfellows worrying about what was gonna
happen after a close election andhow it would tear the country apart
to the point that to say somethingnice about Kamala Harris,
I heard her speech., And she concededthe election, no, Russia stole it,
(08:05):
[COUGH] no voter suppression,no, it was all racist.
No, we lost andsaid a little too pointedly peaceful
transfer of power and we will help.
That's sort of normal verbiagein American elections, but
to hear return tonormalcy is kind of nice.
I want to echo that it wasin many ways a vote against,
(08:25):
not quite as much as a vote for a voteagainst what the current Democratic Party,
not the person of the incarnincumbent has come to mean.
And it was a vibes [COUGH] election,not a detailed policy plan election.
Much as you know,within the white halls of Hoover,
we love to debate detailed policy plans,there weren't any and
(08:47):
I don't think anybodycared about them anyway.
There was sort of an expectationof what's going to come, but
not what the President saidthe vibes were important.
What are we voting against and for?
I think for, is not so much the personof Donald Trump, he embodies a vision,
but vibes of we believe in our country andwe want spaceships to Mars.
(09:10):
[LAUGH] Bringing Elon Musk alongwas a very forward looking sign,
it's not just tariffs to bringback the 1950s, it's opportunity.
We're voting against the permitoffice as much as anything else.
A big vote against lawfare.
Maybe I'm guilty of projectingmy own annoyances, but
(09:31):
the use of the justice system,the regulatory state censorship
to go after political opponentsI found appalling and
I think many of my fellowAmericans did too.
Donald Trump should have been retiredto Mar a Lago about February,
after the last election andthe Democrats brought him back.
(09:52):
Because when you go after him withsuch obviously trumped up charges,
Americans go, my country is not Pakistan,my country is not Tunisia.
Yeah, when you lose an election,you don't lose your job,
your business, your life, your freedom.
So, such transparent misuseof the justice system for
(10:15):
political aims that that neverhappened in this country before.
For example, spiking the hunterlaptop story of all the many,
that's another one as well.
Censorship, I think we sawthe pervasive censorship.
For example during COVID peoplegot really annoyed by that,
which led them to see incompetence andI think inflation.
(10:36):
Of course, I'm an economist, inflationis big, but that really rang in America.
Everyday Americans who maybedon't read all the stories about
various lawfare escapades, butsetting off [COUGH] a 9 to 10%
inflation cumulative about20% over the period,
that just speaks of complete incompetence[LAUGH] of your economic policy.
(11:00):
Whether it is or not, I'll leave to myfellow monetary economists to debate.
But in the eyes of everyday Americans,what started in the financial crisis goes
on to the retreat from Afghanistan, goeson to one catastrophe after obviously not
knowing what they're doing with COVIDprotections and then 10% inflation.
They're voting against incompetence.
And in academia,we're voting against the DEI office.
>> Niall Ferguson (11:23):
John, I need to interrupt you.
This list is too long,you know why you're an economist, but
you've forgotten that it's the economy,I won't say stupid.
>> John H. Cochrane (11:34):
Well, I don't think it's just because objectively.
>> Niall Ferguson (11:36):
No, no, no, hear me out, hear me out, very simple point,
very simple point.
Let's get Occam's razor out here.
If you look at medianhousehold income adjusted for
inflation, forevery president since Richard Nixon,
Donald Trump's first term was byfar the best presidential run.
(12:00):
2.09% compound annual growth,
Biden 0.44% Obama 0.45,
Bush Jr minus 0.22, and I could go on.
How about a real simple explanation?
The Trump economy rocked by comparison,the Biden Harris economy sucked,
(12:20):
as you said, because of inflation.
And all this other stuffyou're adding is superfluous,
that we don't need to know it.
>> John H. Cochrane (12:26):
I think it's important, I think a sense that the basic
institutions of our countryare hollowed out was important.
Okay, one last point, not close, becauseyou asked about the political comeback.
That was remarkable.
Partly it's due to the Democrats whoby going after him, brought him back,
partly it's because of the talentsof Donald Trump as a politician.
(12:50):
And here I'll credit the New York Times,they had a hit piece on Trump,
how terrible it is that he's spendingfour years going after going at every
congressman and insisting thatthat congressman support him.
That's what politicians do.
And bringing the Republican Party, whichshould have sort of moved on to a new face
under his wing was, like it or not,a remarkable political achievement.
(13:12):
Okay, sorry,my list did get too long [LAUGH].
>> Bill Whalen (13:14):
Can I, throw one element in here?
That Trump ran just a more nimble,more creative campaign than she did.
She ran a very old school Democraticcampaign, running around with celebrities.
He took advantage of new media,this was the campaign of free press,
this was the campaignof Joe Rogan podcast.
The Democrats, meanwhile,
obsessed over not getting endorsementsfrom the LA Times and the Washington Post.
(13:37):
Bret, do you think we've turned a cornerhere on media in terms of the importance
it plays in elections andwhere candidates are gonna go.
>> John H. Cochrane (13:43):
I just want to add to that and
not just the carefully scriptedword salad that came out of Kamala,
the I think he won the election whenhe went to McDonald's and served fries.
[LAUGH] What a brilliant item, butplease, Brad, I'm sorry for interrupting.
>> Bret Stephens (13:57):
No, I mean, I agree, and I think that without getting too specific,
mainstream media did not acquititself particularly well.
I thought it was hilarious that atthe Washington Post they were gnashing
their teeth at the lack of an endorsement,which number one just exhibited.
(14:21):
If there was any doubt thatthe paper was stuffed with left wing
partisans masquerading as journalists,but also because it was
impossible to read the Washington Postwithout noticing that every
article was essentiallyan advertisement for Kamala Harris.
They were reporting onan America that exists
(14:45):
in an acela corridor, but nowhere else.
Everyone else, in their view,as I was reading accounts, sounded like or
was treated as a person in an Amazoniantribe that had recently been
discovered by the anthropologistsof the mainstream media.
(15:06):
Who, were studying them forclues about their system of taboos and
shamans and so forth and so on.
Whereas, the rest of Americaunderstands that as regular America.
And I really am hoping thatthis is a sorry for the cliche,
a come to Jesus moment fora lot of mainstream media
(15:28):
outlets that I don'tthink fully appreciate,
the extent to which they puttheir biases on display,
in what should be straightup news reporting that their
understanding of America isinhibited by their own background.
It would be nice, I would say,if they sort of more fully internalize
(15:55):
the point of DEI seminars,which tell them to.
Check their biases at the door and
examine the sort ofsystemic worldviews that
they have in order todo something about the.
Bias is not even the wrong,it's not even the right word.
(16:18):
It's an entire Weltanschauung.
There's a word for Niall,
a whole worldview that cannotsee past its own parapets.
And I agree that this is nowgonna be an occasion for
a lot of the sort of newer andmore intriguing,
(16:40):
different idiosyncraticmedia voices to expand,
diversify what they're doing.
Encroach in traditional areas of coveragethat mainstream outlets have more or
less dominated even foreign newsreporting, not just the cultural stuff,
that actually makes it an exciting andpregnant time.
(17:03):
I mean, look, I think peopleknow that I voted for Kamala.
I made that public,I describe myself as the world's most
reluctant Kamala voter,and I can go into that.
But this is one of those singularmoments of creative destruction in
American life which actually goesfar to explain the resilience and
(17:26):
adaptability of American institutions,not their weakness or vulnerability.
>> Niall Ferguson (17:34):
Can I suggest something about this and then HR you must come in.
But this is really a question foryou, Brad.
It strikes me what's interesting aboutthe Trump campaign is that it combined
the traditional, I mean, the hamburgerstunt was old school politics.
The rallies are almosta 19th century style of
(17:56):
campaigning with the novel,in particular the memes.
I was impressed at how fast the Trumpcampaign was able to get the memes out,
particularly towards the endwhen things were getting kind
of funny after the Madison Square Gardenevent, the rally,
(18:19):
when a comedian made a joke aboutPuerto Rico a as a garbage island.
Within just hours, Trump was ina garbage truck in Wisconsin and
delivered an entire speechin the garbage man's vest.
>> H.R. McMaster (18:36):
And he got an assist from President Biden with that, though,
too, who.
>> Niall Ferguson (18:39):
Completely significant arrow, yeah.
And can we just sparea moment to think of Peter?
>> Bret Stephens (18:46):
[CROSSTALK] Look, this is not data, it's anecdote.
But I was partly informed in thiselection, I'm not on TikTok.
I'm actually, I'm for banning TikTok,but that's another story.
But the number of memes I got frommy younger children, by the way,
(19:06):
whose politics move in various directions,was really stacked.
I wouldn't have known kind of halfof what was going on were it not for
these things constantlybeing forward to me,
either by my kids who are older teenagers,or by their friends.
There was just an entire worldof discourse, usually mockery,
(19:31):
mocking, funny, ironic, andoften very, very smart.
That was completely missedby the sort of boring
earnestness that describedmost mainstream commentary.
The nation is on the line, etc.
(19:55):
It was, I mean, one of the thingsabout Kamala's campaign and
the entire liberal establishmentbehind her, just how boring it was.
You just kind of went, God, yes,I'm gonna eat my broccoli again.
And people don't like broccoli.
>> Niall Ferguson (20:13):
But, Bret, weren't you energized by what can be,
unburdened by what has been?
Wasn't that.
>> Bret Stephens (20:18):
Well, that's exactly, I saw people playing it,
like doing tunes on the piano.
It just gleeful mockery of the unburned.
And by the way, just one point here.
We have to stop andconsider and marvel at what
a spectacularly incompetentcandidate Kamala Harris was.
(20:42):
And this was should not havebeen a surprise to anyone.
I wrote a column back in July.
She's a terrible manager.
She had a dreadful officeas vice president.
She ran one of the most hilariouslyincompetent campaigns in 2019.
She communicated a certainsense of unearned entitlement.
(21:02):
And this is the person that the Democratsinstantly anointed as their preferred
candidate, and people are surprisedshe lost, I don't know why.
>> John H. Cochrane (21:10):
But the party line switched overnight,
including your newspaper, about howwonderful she was [COUGH] all of a sudden.
>> Bret Stephens (21:16):
Well, I would say it was like that scene seen in 1984.
We've always been atwar against East Asia.
I mean, Euro Asia, whatever.
>> John H. Cochrane (21:23):
What was hilarious is hers was the campaign of joy, remember?
The most sanctimonious joy I've ever seen.
You have to remember the old joke,
how many progressives does ittake to change a light bulb?
That kind of humor really isn'tappropriate in this situation you know.
>> Niall Ferguson (21:38):
Okay, HR I go.
HR, I'm sorry, we're having.
>> H.R. McMaster (21:41):
That's okay, this isn't really my thing.
It's okay, it's all right.
>> Niall Ferguson (21:44):
But it really is.
>> H.R. McMaster (21:47):
This sort of thing ain't my.
>> Niall Ferguson (21:48):
No, no, no, wait, wait, I've got a great question.
>> [LAUGH]>> Niall Ferguson: Please,
I wanna ask this question.
So an important part of the Harrisstrategy was to get people
who had been in the firstTrump administration and
parade them in front of the mediadenouncing Donald Trump.
And I don't think that's ever been,
(22:09):
it's never been done on that scalebefore because it could probably never
have been done on that scale before,and this too, failed.
Now HR You've not been uncritical ofPresident Trump in your most recent book,
but you weren't part ofthe circus of denunciation.
Just give us your thoughts about why thatfailed so completely to move voters.
(22:32):
If anything, it seems to have backfired.
I mean,
Liz Cheney, who knew that Liz Cheneywould not mobilize Democratic voters?
Something funny there?
>> H.R. McMaster (22:41):
Well, you know,
I think the American people saw whatJohn kind of chronicled and we've all
been talking about were the variousavenues of attack against Donald Trump.
And of course, this is what theysay he's going to do, right?
He's going to engage in lawfare and hedoesn't help his own case because he talks
about retribution andall that sort of thing.
But I think people just kind of rejectedit because they saw the hypocrisy
(23:03):
in casting him as a fascist orthe analogies to Hitler, really.
I mean, soI just think that it failed because
they jumped the sharkkind of on it in terms of
the vitriol and the apoplectic warnings.
(23:24):
But then also I just thinkit's bad practice, Niall.
I mean, it's one of the reasons why Iwrote the book the way I did is because I
wanted to tell the story, but
nobody needs like washed upgenerals telling them how to vote.
And, and I think that this effortto drag the military into partisan
politics with like the lists of maybeall the national security officials,
(23:44):
it really was, who was signed on to thatletter or to get retired generals and
so forth to endorse really inthe capacity of a retired general.
It's not a new practice, but
I think it's particularly dangerousthese days because of how.
Polarized we've been and the need for
the military to transcendthe partisan politics.
>> Donald Trump (24:06):
To maintain the confidence of the American people across
the political spectrum because dependingon what the politics of particular
households are, we need the best youngAmericans to serve in our armed forces.
Maybe today more than anytime in recent history.
So I was concerned about that trend and
have talked extensively aboutthis in the last month or so
(24:28):
that we have to keep the militaryout of the kind of the vortex
[LAUGH] that is pulling so many Americansapart within other institutions.
And yeah,I hope we've hit the apogee of it.
And as Bret and all of you know,I mean, this is not new.
I remember Bill Clinton amassing kind ofthe list of flag officers generals and
(24:51):
admirals to endorse him whenhe first ran for president.
But I think it's just bad practice.
>> Bill Whalen (24:57):
HR you're the only one in this call who has been
hired by Donald Trump.
So why don't we spend a couple minutestalking about who Trump is gonna hire
the next few weeks.
I'd like to get the panel's thoughtson who his most important pick is.
Who you'd like to see in say the StateDepartment or the Defense Department.
Then I also wanna get your thoughtson how he's gonna keep this team of,
shall we say,very large personalities together.
Elon Musk, Robert Kennedy,Vivek Ramaswamy and so forth.
(25:19):
So, anybody wanna go on the picks forDefense and Secretary of State?
>> H.R. McMaster (25:23):
Hey, well, I'll just start here.
I just think it's the overall team andhow well that team can work together.
And by the team, I mean the defensediplomatic and economic teams.
Because today's competitions are sointertwined and
demand the integration of allelements of national power
with efforts of like mindedpartners internationally.
(25:47):
And so I think he's got somegreat people to pick from.
If you think about could it beTom Cotton in Defense paired with
Bill Hagerty in State or in treasury.
And I think that Lighthizer islike minded with them in terms of
countering Chinese economic aggression,for example.
I mean, John, I think would not probablyagree with a lot of his policies, but
(26:11):
I think that's probably coming.
And then of course you have to be,
I think maybe a bit more concernedwith the unconfirmed positions.
I think especiallynational security advisor.
That is such a critical job,
because you don't want someone inthat job who misunderstands his or
her role as a person to advocate forkind of their preferred policies.
(26:31):
You need somebody who's going toguard Donald Trump's independence of
judgment and present him fairly withthe views of all the cabinet officials.
And others who can help him revise hisassessment and make the best possible
decisions among multiple courses ofaction that are presented to him.
So, hey, I think it's worthwatching very closely, obviously,
(26:54):
who comes into these positions, because Ithink it'll be indicative of whether or
not they're going to help Donald Trumpmake the best possible decisions.
Or they're either gonna be at warwith themselves, which should be try.
They try to avoid or bring people inwho are pursuing their own agendas.
>> Niall Ferguson (27:14):
Well, Tom Cotton says he's not doing it, so he's out.
I'm not sure what your expectation is,Bret, but
let me offer a hypothesis aboutthe national security team that
there are two possible Trumpadministrations we could guess.
There's one that's kind of Reaganite andpretty hawkish,
(27:35):
that might include Robert O'Brien,it might include Mike Pompeo.
And that would be a nationalsecurity team who would recommend
exerting greater military pressureon Russia to try to end the war.
That would certainly supportIsrael in its efforts to degrade
Iran's nuclear program andwould probably be quite hawkish on Taiwan.
(28:00):
But there's another scenario in whichTrump doesn't pick those people,
but goes with people who are closerto J.D Vance's thinking.
Elon Musk's thinking on Ukrainedon't really want there to be
a strong independent Ukraine and
probably don't really want a showdownin the Middle East or in China either.
(28:24):
So I think it'll be really interesting tosee which Trump administration emerges,
one that's Reaganite orone that's actually more isolationist.
Bret, do you have any thoughts on this?
>> Bret Stephens (28:33):
No, I think, look,
the answer this is maybe the most decisivequestion about the Trump administration.
I think one of the reasons why people,
when they think about the first Trumpadministration, feel fairly good
about it is that the rhetoric was oftenwild, but the policy was pretty good.
(28:54):
I mean, people said, or excuse me,Trump was Putin's poodle.
But in fact, the administrationdid more to oppose Russia
than either Obama had before it orcertainly Biden did,
at least until the invasion of Ukraine.
(29:14):
But that, I think, had a lot to dowith the fact that he was surrounded
by advisors like HR or his secret,his Mike Pompeo and so on.
What you hear from the newkind of Trump dispensation
are people who are much moreisolationist in their leanings,
(29:36):
kind of see Russia as a potentialfuture ally in a chessboard to contain.
The Chinese see Russia's, in a sense,like almost the opposite of China
in the early 1970s, as a piece that canbe pried away from the Chinese orbit.
Elbridge Colby represents this view, and
(29:57):
I think he's gonna play some significantrole in a second Trump term.
So we'll find out very quicklywhere Trump intends to go and
just how much influence JDhas in those deliberations.
I also, knowing JD slightly andat least watching his trajectory,
I wonder whether he has any fixedconvictions at all in this respect,
(30:21):
beyond his immediate political ambitions.
So we'll find out.
>> Bill Whalen (30:26):
John economics.
>> John H. Cochrane (30:27):
Hello,
I can't resist opining on thingsthat aren't in my wheelhouse.
I think you guys are right.
There is a question when you getempowered, rhetoric reads reality.
So they're certainly not going to cut andrun like Biden did in Afghanistan.
I think that lesson is pretty clear.
Don't do like that in Ukraine.
Trump is also a good negotiator andhe understands you get a better deal
(30:50):
when the other side feels under pressurethan following Biden when you announce.
All we want to do is negotiate andget the hell out of here.
So it's not obvious thatwhen you face reality,
the right thing to do with Ukraine issit down and say, let's negotiate now,
while Putin feels he has the other hand.
And I do think even channeling J.D Vance,his people fought these wars and
they were not very success.
(31:11):
But the lesson, I still like the PowellDoctrine, you either fight it to win or
you don't fight it at all.
So fight it to win, especially in Israel,might be what comes out.
We'll see what comes out there.
So economics.
>> Bret Stephens (31:23):
So very briefly.
>> John H. Cochrane (31:24):
Please try.
>> Bret Stephens (31:26):
Look, I think the psychology of being seen as the winner,
matters a lot to Trump.
Simple as that is,he does not wanna look like a loser.
And I think if there's onelesson in Afghanistan,
which in many ways was his brainchild,
that departure is America looked weak andhe does not wanna look weak.
So a kind of a cut and run from Ukrainethat leads to the same sort of debacle
(31:51):
in Kiev that we saw in Kabul threeyears ago is not gonna be something.
He is not gonna be a prospecthe is going to savor.
>> John H. Cochrane (32:00):
Exactly, so let me turn to economics.
This is an interesting one andcuz I think there is gonna be a tension,
there's a lot of people in the wings andin the Trump orbit who are very good,
free market, free trade,deregulation, economists.
And I think the vibe with Elon Musk is avibe not that what we need to do is erect
(32:21):
huge protective barriers and bringback a museum of 1950s manufacturing.
But we need spaceships to Mars, we need tostop being a country where, as Musk says,
it takes longer to get the permits tolaunch a rocket than it does to design,
build and light the damn rocket.
And I think that that kind ofthing happens under the radar
screen that's where good stuffhappens outside of rhetoric.
(32:44):
So there may be,we'll see who wins, there's,
of course the protectioniststhrow up the trade barriers view,
and there's gonna bean interesting debate [LAUGH].
HR's book, wonderful book,brought some of the elements of that
debate from the first time around,which side I hope prevails.
(33:04):
One can do things that look good in publicwithout doing a lot of damage in private.
So you can have sort of show tariffsthat don't really matter that much to
the economy butwhere I'm hopeful, of course,
is that the team deregulate wins andreally gets the US Economy going.
>> Niall Ferguson (33:21):
Well, there's obviously a Wall Street element to this story,
which is very important because someof your fellow economists, John, have
been running around warning that Trumpwill add even more to the deficit and
therefore the federal debt, and thereforethe bond market is just waiting to pounce.
(33:42):
And so it kind of matters who the treasurysecretary is under these circumstances and
we hear names of eminent Wall Streetfigures like Scott Besant mentioned.
I see the transition involvesCantor Fitzgerald's, Howard Lutnick,
never forget that Wall Street issomething Trump cares a lot about.
(34:04):
He'll be consulting Wall Street people andhe won't want economic measures
that cause the stock market to swoon,never mind the bond market.
So I think that's important to rememberwhen you're trying to figure out
the direction of economic policy.
The recollection people have of the Trumpeconomy in the first term was good and
(34:25):
with good reason.
And part of, I think what will happenhere is that the protectionist
elements will have to coexistwith the Wall Street folks, and
the protectionists won't be allowed to dostuff that is gonna scare the markets.
As HR knows from personal experience,
(34:46):
transitions a kind of extraordinary timeand an administration's a huge thing.
I don't think us ordinary folkwho've never been in the government
can fully comprehendthe sheer scale of it,
the sheer size of the federalexecutive branch, and
the kind of insanity of trying to staff itin the aftermath of an election campaign.
(35:10):
That's the thing that alwaysmakes my head spin a bit,
that there are not just hundreds butthousands of positions to be filled.
And, of course, the people in thetransition team are currently under siege
from all those many people who fancythemselves the next HR McMaster,
bombarding them with,I don't know, strategy documents,
(35:30):
memoranda explaining how they, andthey alone can bring China to its knees.
So it's hard to convey on a show likeGoodfellas just how completely crazy it
is, right, HR?
>> H.R. McMaster (35:41):
Yeah, well, of course, I came in after the initial transition,
which I heard was very chaotic, but a lotof good work got done in that transition
with some people who have beenworking with the transition teams.
They put together these landing teamsthat go into each of the departments and
agencies who assess, really,based on what they believe that
the president's priorities are,the current state of affairs and
(36:03):
make recommendations about the transitionthat's gonna be happening very soon.
I think the campaign is much betterorganized than it was in 2016,
which may have been a low bar, but
a lot of good work got done because theybrought in people like Matt Pottinger.
Who actually laid the foundation for a fundamental shift in
Trump administration, policy andapproach to North Korea, as well as China.
(36:27):
And on the China shift,I think it was the most significant
shift in US foreign policysince the end of the cold war.
So I do think they are getting deluged,as you mentioned, Niall, but
I guess hopefully they're adept atseparating the wheat from the chaff and
getting the most important ideasin front of the president elect
(36:48):
before he gets sworn in in January.
>> John H. Cochrane (36:51):
I'm still a little worried that we're missing the big story,
which is not Trump gets elected.
He's acknowledged the president,he appoints his people,
the Senate confirms them, we implementpolicy with interagency memos.
And this is Bret has a bigger fingeron the pulse, you're in that bubble.
Are the Democrats just goingto sit back quietly, or
(37:13):
is this gonna be the resistance,Russia collusion?
If they get the House, are they going tosay, no, we're not certifying the election
and inside the agencies, is it gonna bethe same kind of we refuse to go along.
Just how much complete chaos do yousee coming out of the Democrats in
(37:34):
the weeks after the inauguration?
>> Bret Stephens (37:36):
Well, it's a wonderful question, and I have been urging,
as I did in my column yesterday,that the Democrats understand
how utterly counterproductiveresistance politics is.
I mean, this is actually the oxygenoff of which a political figure like
Donald Trump and his movement feed,because, after all, what is their brand?
(38:00):
We are up against an entrenched,secretive, manipulative, dishonest,
and disgusting deep state that istrying to stop us at every turn.
And then Democrats helpfully obligethem by behaving like a dishonest,
disgusting, deceitful,manipulative deep state, right?
So, Democrats need to find a wayto conduct normal politics against
(38:24):
Trump in the way that oppositionparties do without attempting
those kind of extra legal ordubious maneuvers that have typified
the way they've treated Trumpsince almost the very beginning.
The problem is,they're the scorpion that can't help but
sting the frog, there's somethingthere that is gonna be very
(38:48):
resistant to learning the lessonof their serial defeats.
I think the default positionof much of the media is Trump
is a mortal threat to ourRepublican experiment.
He must be stopped everything he does is
presumptively criminal orgross or apocalyptic.
(39:12):
They have a hard time thinkingoutside of those terms,
it's a function of the sort oftheir milieu, their education.
And so I suspect, even though it'sagainst their own best interest and
should be against their lived experience,as they like to say,
that they're gonna conduct exactlythe same kind of warfare against this
(39:35):
administration than they did the last one.
Maybe this time the grace periodwill be three days rather than two.
>> Bill Whalen (39:42):
Bret, have you met Gavin Newsom, have you met our new senator?
>> Bret Stephens (39:47):
Adam Schiff.
>> Bill Whalen (39:48):
Who led impeachment, does California need to secede?
>> Bret Stephens (39:52):
How soon can it secede is my question but
I say it not because I think.
It would be a mutually good thing for
all of North America let a socialistrepublic in California take root,
and the rest of us will livea slightly more contented life.
>> Bill Whalen (40:13):
Okay, well, I mentioned Newsom because if you go to the betting
markets right now, he is at the topof the betting markets right now.
And Bret, everything that you laid outin that really good column in which you
offered advice to the winner of theelection, that's the anti-Newsom in terms
of showing humility, not coming overthe big ideas, going for modest solutions.
That's all the stuff thatGavin Newsom does not do.
>> Bret Stephens (40:31):
Well, I mean, and again,
it would not surprise me ifhe ends up being the nominee.
But parties, l think of the DemocraticParty between 1980 and 1992.
I mean, they were soconvinced they were right.
And it took the Democratic LeadershipCouncil, it took a figure like
(40:54):
Bill Clinton, and it took three stinging,landslide defeats before
they started to think that theyneeded to reorder their priorities.
The salvation for the Democratic Party,I think, in the end is gonna
come from someone like Andy Beshear,some centrist southern governor
(41:16):
who talks the language of normalAmericans and understands just how
toxic the current culture of liberallife is to Democratic fortunes.
>> Bill Whalen (41:26):
Okay, Neil Friedman, 28, or Josh Shapiro, 28?
>> Niall Ferguson (41:30):
Yeah, well, I don't wanna think about 2028 for
at least a year.
I'd like a holiday fromAmerican electoral politics,
can you just take a leaf outof the old country's book?
Multi-week long campaigns,get the election done in a day,
and then get back to the seriousbusiness of football and beer.
(41:54):
I think America suffersfrom too much politics.
I've come to the conclusion thatit's actually got out of control and
you've developed what might bethe first addiction to politics
that has been seen inthe annals of history.
Because politics shouldn't be thiscompelling, it shouldn't be this engaging.
(42:15):
When they invented the Internet,I don't think anybody foresaw
that its principal use after,of course, pornography,
would be the consumption of news thatdoom scrolling through election results.
I wonder what happened in Pennsylvania.
I mean, it's just not normal, can wejust not talk about politics for a bit?
(42:37):
I actually genuinely don'tcare who's running in 2028,
I don't want to have to thinkabout it until about 2027.
>> John H. Cochrane (42:44):
I agree with you, let's not talk about personalities and
not talk about which team is up andwhich team is down.
I do wanna ask all of you guys,let's look at the bigger picture,
this is a stunning rebuke for Democrats.
Is it finally the turning of the tideof this great movement that started
maybe in the French Revolution,picked up some steam with Marx, and
(43:08):
currently is paternalistic,authoritarian, aristocratic?
And it's quite authoritarian, we mustrule in the name of the little people.
There's this word salad of propagandawhich I can't tell whether they
cynically don't believe it anymore,the first sign of failing, or whether
they actually believe the craziness thatcomes out of the party line every week.
(43:33):
I was very amused that HR told us thathis predecessors called him to tell him
that the number one strategic challengeof the United States was climate change.
And sounded like they actually,sorry for the digression, viewing ever
larger government, ever larger running ofthings, we're just so close to nirvana.
(43:55):
All we need is $30,000 home buyercredit and forgive your college loans.
And one more little tax exemption forthis, that, and the other thing,
five more pages on the environmentalassessment report, and ready to go.
Now Europe has figured out they'restarting to realize this killed our
growth andwe need to do something about it.
(44:18):
Is America finally figuring out that thisdescent into now it's identity politics,
but whatever is, that this great movementof the ever larger government of
the left is over andsome new thing is happening?
There's Giorgia Meloni in Italy,there's Milei in Argentina.
Apparently, the Labor government inthe UK has managed to screw itself up in
(44:40):
about three weeks flat.
Or is it back to normal, the samefight we've been having for the last-
>> Niall Ferguson (44:46):
Well, John,
I don't think this electionsaw a decisive vote for
the kind of economics that you believe in.
There's not much there, particularlyon the fiscal side, that I can find.
Unless you believe the kindalast minute idea that Elon Musk
is going to set up the doge andcut $2 trillion from the federal budget.
(45:11):
Now that came in pretty late in the day,and
I'm not sure how many voterspaid attention to it.
But it's worth thinking about becauseup until this point in his career,
Donald Trump has not been notable fortaking our fiscal problems seriously.
I think the entry of Elon Musk intoAmerican politics is the single most
significant thing that happened in thiselection because it's a phenomenal
(45:35):
game changer.
When the owner of one of the majorsocial media platforms and
the single most important entrepreneurin America comes down unequivocally
on one side politically andthen campaigns with President Trump and
spends election night sitting with Trump,obviously talking about what they do next.
(45:58):
But what I can't tell is how muchElon we're really going to get.
If we're getting $2 trillionoff the federal budget,
that is Javier Milei territory,that is Argentina.
But I just don't know if we'regonna get it, be interesting.
>> John H. Cochrane (46:10):
But it was particularly interesting cuz he
had to do it.
He recognized the federal agencies outto get him for his political views,
and if he wanted to keep his business,he needed to have Trump win.
The same way Trump needed to runbecause otherwise they were gonna throw
him in jail.
So it's quite significant.
I think he brings a voice and
a persona to a movement that wasalready quite well underway in
(46:34):
the little technocratic bubbles [LAUGH]of Republican economic politics.
But, yeah, butthat is something that's happening.
And this was not a policy election,this was a vibes election,
I don't think we'regonna cut taxes on tips.
There wasn't policy proposals, butthere was a vibe of, we like America,
(46:54):
we reject the 1619 project,we want growth, we want entrepreneurship.
That vibe can take its expressionin policy when time comes.
There were no detailed 15 pointsTrump policy plans to look at, and
let's hope the vibe wins.
>> Bill Whalen (47:12):
HR, a question for you, can you tell us how this election is being
perceived in the governments in Moscow,Tehran, and Beijing?
>> H.R. McMaster (47:19):
Well, I think what they're gonna try to do is to take
advantage of the continuingdivisions in the country.
And a lot of it will have to do withwhether or not Democrats heed Bret's
advice, or if they go back intothe opposition and resistance mode.
Because that's a gift,it's a gift to our adversaries who wanna
perpetuate the divisions that reduce ourconfidence in who we are as a people and
(47:41):
our democratic principles,institutions, and processes.
As we mentioned at the outset,
the best thing that could have happenedwas this kind of a decisive victory.
Because, really,what Russia, in particular,
wanted is large numbers of Americansto doubt the legitimacy of the result.
And they're not gonna get that, at least.
So I think what's reallyimportant is how we behave.
Because the Russians, the Chinese, others,
(48:03):
they don't createdivisions in our society.
They take the existing divisions and
try to broaden them further in an effortto reduce our will to contest really what
is their mutual effort to tear down theexisting rules of international discourse.
And replace them with a new setof rules that are sympathetic to
their authoritarian forms of governmentand in China's case, especially,
(48:26):
their status mercantilist economic model.
So a lot of it,we have agency over the United States, and
I'm hoping that the two speeches we heard,President Trump's speech,
as he won the election, and KamalaHarris's speech, will be the kind of tone
going forward, but we probably all oughtto be skeptical about that, right?
(48:47):
And maybe do our part in making the case.
If we're coming together around an agendawe can agree on, we're talking about a lot
of divisions or differences andwithin maybe a Trump administration.
But I'm sure this is gonna beprofoundly positive for all Americans.
I mean, how about deregulation, right?
Regardless of how much you can cut out ofthe budget and try get back to a sensible
(49:09):
approach to spending, there's gonnabe a heck of a lot of deregulation.
Which can get to what we all,I think would agree is the best way or
the easiest way maybe toreduce the deficit and
begin to address the debt issues,which is economic growth.
>> Bret Stephens (49:25):
And compensate for ruinous trade policy with
sky high tariffs on core trade partners.
>> H.R. McMaster (49:35):
Right, [LAUGH] and then also energy security, Bret.
I mean, what other areas do youfeel optimistic about regardless
of what debates occur withinthe Trump administration or
what resistance there is to Trump?
>> Bret Stephens (49:49):
Look, I mean, an administration that fundamentally
understands what it is liketo conduct business in
America is somethingthe country sorely needs.
I've been saying for a long time thatthere are essentially two economies in
America, there's an economyof words which I inhabit.
(50:10):
That's the economy of lawyers, academics,
rules makers in the bureaucracies,publishers and
so on, and there is an economy of things.
Real estate guys, truckers,big manufacturers and so on, and
the economy of words, whichincreasingly is the governing class in
(50:32):
America has no clue what it'sto be in the economy of things.
Because when I decide wherea semicolon should go,
there isn't a government bureaucratasking me to justify the semicolon
in a seven-page document so that it canmeet with his approval in Washington.
(50:53):
But if you're running even a mid-sizedcompany in America, not even a mid-sized
company in America, the land ofregulation that you inhabit is fearsome.
And I like the fact that Trump knowsin his bones from having live this in
New York,what it means to build a hotel in and
get the permitting that you need for thekind of televisions that you're gonna get.
(51:19):
What it means to deal witha $5 increase in the minimum
wage which cuts into razor thin margins.
I mean, all these sort of questionsTrump kind of gets in his kish kiss, so
to speak.
And that I think is gonnabe a general positive in
the way that Trump approacheshis decision-making.
(51:40):
I think he has some economicideas which are terrible and
dangerous, I mentioned his own->> H.R. McMaster: 60% tariffs on China,
10%.
Mercantilism and so on, but on the other hand,
the other thing that I look forward to islook, Trump does understand negotiation.
And I don't think we would have seenEurope even move fraction in the direction
(52:05):
of higher defense budgets if it hadn'tbeen accompanied by that threat.
We're gonna get ourselves out of NATO,the stick has to be visible.
And under Democratic administrations,
it's never visible becauseJoe Biden has literally, except for
when he was raking in money from speechesfor four years during his sabbatical
(52:29):
from government, has never had a jobas far as I know in the private sector.
Kamala Harris has never hada job in the private sector.
Most Democrats I knowhave never had one and
they certainly haven't hadjobs in the things economy.
Which is what makes America,traditionally, what made America great,
(52:50):
and it's what appealed to peopleabout capitalism, so to speak,
the feeling like Elon Musk makes stuff,and that stuff by the way is kinda cool.
>> John H. Cochrane (53:00):
But I think there's hope here,
the Democrats are also findingout that regulation is a problem.
They found it out when they wanted toconnect windmills and solar panels to
the grid and figured out it's gonnatake ten years to get the permit, and
that's when the climate catastrophe hits.
They figured out finally that housing,the problem with house prices is it takes
(53:20):
too long to get the permitsto build up housing, so
I think there is this will even fromthe left to do something about that.
I wanna pivot just a little toanother optimistic note which I
wanna tee up for discussion.
What's gonna happen politically?
Trump will either go afterhis enemies using, he'll say,
(53:42):
look at all these wonderful tools oflawfare, handy for me to use them.
If that happens, I am optimistic it willturn the Democrats into sudden come to
Jesus civil libertarians.
Wait a minute, the Supreme Court'sprotections that you can't prosecute
a former president for think things he didin office, that was a wonderful thing.
(54:02):
[LAUGH] We need to, yeah, free speechall of a sudden, the First Amendment,
that's really important whenTrump tries to use censorship.
Alternatively, Trump could,as you mentioned,
pardon Biden,stop prosecuting the Hunter Biden case,
although that one actually has somelegal basis, unlike the previous ones.
But when do we put the lawfare aside andsay no,
(54:23):
we're not gonna bring gunsto the next fist fight?
Either of the two seemsa optimist way that eventually
we put this thing back in the closet.
What do you guys think?
>> Bret Stephens (54:38):
Look, I mean,
I think the lesson of the first Trumpadministration is Trump has one enemy
that's even bigger than the deep state orthe Democratic media complex.
That enemy is himself.
Right.This is a man who just can't help but
step on his own dick,to use an old expression.
(54:58):
And so the instincts forretribution, vengeance for
the kind of personal paranoiathat he seems to display,
that's just an irrepressibleside of his character.
Which is why one of the reasons I haddeep misgivings about him even in
(55:21):
this second run, because there'sa current of darkness there,
I mean, there's just no getting around it.
And I think that came out when you saw somany of the people who had been
in his inner circle describe the sort ofshambolic ways in which he ran his shop.
(55:43):
So we'll find out, but my experience of
septuagenarian men is thatthey are who they are.
>> Niall Ferguson (55:53):
Can I just add one structural rather than ad hominem point,
it's a second term?
And second terms are differentfrom first terms.
And we should think a bit more aboutthat because it feels to me as if
Democrats are so used to hyperventilatingabout his being Hitler or
(56:13):
Mussolini or whatever it is.
That they omit the sort of base case,which is that it will have the same
qualities that all second terms,even Reagan's second term had.
Second terms are often quite disastrous.
Of course, Nixon's was the supremelydisastrous second term.
Win a landslide and then descend into themaelstrom of Watergate and resignation.
(56:37):
But it's hard to think ofa really terrific second term.
If you go through the list,think back to George W Bush's second term,
which ended in the maelstrom ofthe global financial crisis.
So I offer that.
>> Bret Stephens (56:51):
Reagan had a very good second term, even despite Iran Contra.
>> Niall Ferguson (56:55):
Well, I was gonna say Iran congregate wasn't exact exactly
great fun.
And so it feels to me as if the basecase is just that, it's a second term.
And although there's glad confidentmorning in Trump land that I confess to
indulging in some of that myselfbecause I just couldn't abide the idea
of Kamala Harris as president.
(57:16):
I do not know how you could bring yourselfto vote for Kamala Harris as president.
I have enjoyed the defeatof the woke progressive
wing of the Democratic Party hugely.
But glad confident morning in politicstends not to last terribly long.
And it'll be a second term,and by the midterms,
it'll kind of feel like we'rein the lame duck phase.
(57:39):
So give me a sense of how canthis avoid just being another of
those second terms whichsort of goes off the mill.
>> Bret Stephens (57:48):
And it isn't a second term, it's a second term in the sense that
he's constitutionallyprohibited from running again,
although he has in the choice of J.D.Vance, clearly an heir apparent.
And who knows if Don Jr Willbe part of the 2028 ticket.
(58:10):
I don't think that's out of the question.
But because he's coming in for the firsttime with an unmistakable mandate,
there's no question this is nota fluke of know which counties voted
where that got him into the,into office the first term.
And because there's a certain kind oflike, there's a sense that this is
(58:31):
like the age of Trump in the way that wehad the age of Reagan or the age of FDR,
that there's gonna be more energy andinitiative this time around.
I mean, one of the reasons secondterms often fail is because the team
is exhausted by the time they kindof slink into their fifth year.
(58:52):
This does not seem to methe case right now at all.
They seem very energetic.
They have a very clear idea of whatit is that they want to accomplish.
They have, it seems like the legislativewherewithal to accomplish those things.
So it's not I acknowledge I have not readmuch about Grover Cleveland's second
(59:15):
term to know what that was like,but I just don't think you can so
easily compare it to Obama orGeorge W Bush's second term.
>> Bill Whalen (59:26):
I recommend Troy Sinek's really excellent biography on Cleveland,
which is just great readingabout the non consecutive terms.
HR Thomas, up here.
Why don't you take us out ona decidedly optimistic note?
>> H.R. McMaster (59:37):
Well, I think what we've been talking about is the effectiveness of
a second Trump administration, and I thinkthat will depend in large measure on what
Epictetus observed, this is whatis most important to understand.
Well, the role assigned you.
Will the president and
the people he hires understand whattheir roles are under the Constitution?
And it will also depend, I think,
(59:58):
on the three disciplines thatthe stoic philosopher has identified.
Will President Trump havethe discipline of perception?
Will he be able to understand the complexchallenges we're facing, take in a broad
range of views and multiple options andmake effective decisions?
I write in my book that he's capable ofdoing that, but of course that depends on
people around him understandingtheir roles and serving him well.
(01:00:20):
The second is,does he have discipline of action?
Will he have the organizational leadershipcapabilities to be able to drive
the effect of change in the organization?
He's not one really to get into thedetails of who's responsible for what and
so forth.
But will the chief of staff,will the national security adviser,
will the national economic the NEC?
Will these people help him beeffective in the discipline of action,
(01:00:45):
getting things done?
And then the third, andBret mentioned this in particular.
Will he have the discipline of will?
Will he be able to ignore the noise?
Will he be able to take Aristotle's adviceand focus on what he can control so that
he can get as much done as he can and stopbecoming the antagonist in his own story?
So these are all, I think, [LAUGH]aspects of this transition in the Trump
(01:01:10):
presidency to observe andassess and evaluate.
And as we all mentioned here,one of the early indicators of the degree
of which the president will be ableto exhibit these disciplines will
be the people he appointsto some critical positions.
>> Bill Whalen (01:01:27):
And we'll leave it there.
Bret Stephens, thanks for joining us,good luck writing in the weeks ahead.
Plenty of there for you to write about.
>> Bret Stephens (01:01:33):
Thanks a lot, thanks for having me, guys.
>> Bill Whalen (01:01:35):
Since we went on way past our scheduled time with our block,
we're not gonna do a B block andwe're not gonna do lightning rounds.
So this is it.
But a viewing note,
we will be back with the show shortlybefore the American Thanksgiving and
our guest is gonna be formerSecretary of State Mike Pompeo.
So I imagine we're gonna talkabout the transition and hire.
So you don't wanna miss that.
And in December,I think we're gonna do a mailbag show.
(01:01:56):
So if you have questions forthe good fellows, send them in.
And you do that by goingto the following address.
That is Hoover.org/AskGoodFellows,once again,
Hoover.org/AskGoodfellows onbehalf of the GoodFellows,
Sir Niall Ferguson,John Cochrane, H.R. McMaster.
Our guest today, Bret Stephens,we hope you enjoyed the conversation.
We appreciate your viewership.
(01:02:17):
Look forward to seeing you again soon.
Till then, take care, thanks for watching.
[MUSIC]
>> Presenter (01:02:25):
If you enjoyed this show and
are interested in watchingmore content featuring H.R.
McMaster, watch Battlegroundsalso available at hoover.org.
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