September 19, 2025 • 38 mins
As a seemingly interminable conflict in Ukraine concludes its 43rd month of ground combat, aerial drone strikes, and stalemate, America’s culture war enters a new phase with the assassination of conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, followed by the suspension of late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel for an on-air comment made in the aftermath of Kirk’s murder. GoodFellows regulars Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and H.R. McMaster discuss the current state of affairs in Ukraine (Sir Niall fresh off a visit to Kyiv), Kirk’s murder as a watershed moment in a potential new cycle of political violence, plus whether America has reached a tipping point regarding free speech and government meddling for partisan benefit (our resident “grumpy economist” calling for the elimination of the Federal Communications Commission). Finally, a little sunshine (as in the Sundance Kid): the three fellows offering their favorite Robert Redford movies in honor of the recently deceased (and Scottish?) screen legend.
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>> Charlie Kirk (00:00):
Strong men built the west and won the wars and
built the building thatwe're in right now.
And without strong men,
then you all of a sudden seecivilization unfold upon itself.
And we're seeing that happen in real time.
[MUSIC]
>> Bill Whalen (00:18):
It's Friday, September 19, 2025.
And welcome back to GoodFellows, a HooverInstitution broadcast examining social,
economic, political, andgeopolitical concerns.
I'm Bill Whalen,I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow.
I'll be your moderator today.
Looking forward to a spirited conversationwith the three gentlemen we jokingly refer
to as our GoodFellows.
That would be, of course,the historian Sir Niall Ferguson,
(00:39):
the economist John Cochrane, and formerpresidential national security advisor,
Lt Gen H.R. McMaster.
Niall, John, and H.R.are Hoover Senior Fellows.
So, gentlemen, you've all been busy, evenbusier by your normally busy standards,
since the last time we convened.
The three of you actually met in Londonnot too long ago on some Hoover business.
If I can get the travel straight here,then I think John and H.R.
(01:01):
Peeled off and went to Berlin after that,Niall, meanwhile, headed to Kyiv for his,
for I believe, a security conference.
Niall, if I'm not mistaken.
Let's start with Kyiv, Niall.
So not the first time you've been tothat country since the war broke out,
now 43 months ago, incredibly enough.
I'm curious, Niall, as to what has changedat all since the last time you were there.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (01:22):
This is my fourth visit to Kyiv in wartime.
I'd been there many times before, butthe striking thing was that the war is so
much more a part of life in the capitalcity than it was previously,
because this year has seena huge escalation in Russian
airstrikes on all Ukrainian cities,but including Kyiv.
(01:42):
And these are drone strikes, butalso strikes with cruise missiles.
They're now happening pretty much nightly.
I know this because you have to downloadan app to warn you of air raids.
Rather disconcertingly,
the air raid warning went off when Iwas on stage in mid-panel discussion.
(02:03):
I'm glad to say that therewasn't a strike, but
there had been a cruise missilestrike not far from the hotel
where I was staying, not longbefore I paid a visit to that site.
And it's, it's very sobering,
really sobering to see an entire apartmentbuilding taken out by a missile.
(02:26):
Not, not by accident, of course,because these things are,
are capable of, of accurate targeting.
And I think 23 Ukrainian men, women andchildren died in that one strike.
So it's, it's a different atmospherefrom the atmosphere early on in the war.
I can remember back in 2022,the time I went there,
(02:48):
which was around the same time of year,early September.
At that point, the Ukrainians werecockahoop because the Russian army was in
flight from Kharkiv and Kherson.
The mood is much moresomber in Kyiv today.
>> Bill Whalen (03:02):
John, I know you have a lot of questions,
including one of tactics.
Why the Russians bomb civilianpopulations rather than industrial sites.
>> John H. Cochrane (03:09):
Well, yes, I've got questions for Niall,
which hopefully means I'll bea little shorter than usual [LAUGH].
Yes.
Why are they bombing apartment buildings?
Do they not know how totarget military things?
Are the Ukrainians maybe saving theirdefenses for important targets?
We all know that that doesn't work.
Seems strange what's going on withPoland and sending drones over Poland.
(03:30):
I'll be curious to both ofyour reactions to that.
Why are we doing so little about it?
We talked about.
So Niall was pretty militarily pessimisticin his great article summarizing Kyiv.
But there's some economic pessimism, too.
Blowing up refineries feels great, butwe know that substitution is possible.
(03:53):
In the end, Russia could exportcrude oil and import gas.
It's important to do sanctions,
but it's will the war reallybe won by that sort of thing?
And last, where's the deal?
I think what the west is aiming for isNorth Korea, South Korea, China, Taiwan,
East Germany, West Germany,hopefully not North Vietnam.
(04:13):
South Vietnam, let's lay off.
And then Ukraine can join us andbecome prosperous, and
the other side can rot untilVladimir goes on to his reward.
But the other side does not eventhink about that as a deal.
So talking of a deal seems premature.
Okay, there's four questions.
Go for it, guys.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (04:32):
Well, number one, they are deliberately attacking
civilian targets, andthey're doing it almost nightly.
And that's a little counterintuitiveif you know the literature
on strategic bombing in World War IIwhich says that it didn't work,
(04:54):
that civilian morale wasn't damaged,
not by the blitz when Germany wasbombing England, and not by the.
The bombing of Germany bythe Royal Air Force and
the US Air Force later in the war.
But, you know,I do think it affects morale.
In 2025, a young woman toldme of her experience when
(05:17):
she couldn't get intothe air raid shelter and.
And there were explosionsgoing on not far from her.
She said she's stillaffected by it months later.
I think somehow there's a difference.
There's a difference in the sense that Ithink society is different in the 2000s
(05:38):
from the 1940s.
There's a difference in the sense thatthese missiles are precision missiles
that people say, well, if you hearthe explosion, you're okay, because you,
if you don't hear it, you're not.
So that makes a difference compared withthe pretty indiscriminate bombing that
characterized World War II.
So I think there's a determined Russianeffort to undermine Ukrainian morale,
(06:03):
and it's had an effect in the sense that Ithink the mood is somber and indeed grim.
On the other hand, I saw no sign thatUkrainians were willing to fold.
They want the war to end, that's clear.
They want there to be an end to this war,but
they don't want to be on Putin's terms.
So in that sense, it's not working.
I think that was question one.
(06:25):
Question two.
Was that targeting the, the Ukrainians,targeting the oil facilities, John?
>> John H. Cochrane (06:31):
Yeah, it feels good, but is that going to work, or
can the Russians substitutetheir way around it?
Which is->> Sir Niall Ferguson: You answered
the question, John.
You were pessimistic militarily.
And I was wondering if the economicalternative is actually realistic.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (06:44):
Look, it's, it's, it's better than nothing.
It's good that Ukraine has the capacityto carry out deep strikes on, on Russian
infrastructure as well as militarysites which they, they, they've hit.
Is it going to decide the outcome?
No, because it's simply noton a large enough scale.
And as you say, if you blow up a refinery,the Russians can still ship the crude.
(07:04):
So this isn't going to decidethe war in Ukraine's favor, sadly.
But I think if one takes a step back, andI'd be interested to get HR's views on
this, what I'm struck by, and I spent alot of time talking to people about this,
is the extent to which the warreally has changed in its character.
It's a drone war now.
Artillery, armor, infantry,all play a much smaller role.
(07:26):
The front line is essentiallya kind of 20 to 25 kilometer death
strip in which thereare drones in the air.
And if you hear the drone, you're dead.
And so it's a very, very differentwar from the one at the beginning or
even a year ago, because there's been sucha massive ramping up in production of
drones on both sides.
(07:47):
So in some ways,I came away thinking that's actually
quite good news for Ukraine,because a war of men is a war.
It's really hard for Ukraine to win,because they're just outnumbered,
they're outmanned,they can't mass recruit,
much less conscript on the scale that theRussians can with their larger population.
(08:11):
But they can hold their own in a drone warbecause they have a technological edge.
They're just qualitativelyclearly superior.
The Russians can win quantitatively, sothey're churning out these shahid drones,
but they can't actually competeat the level of quality.
And it's now clear that Ukrainehas the most advanced drone
defense industry in the world.
(08:34):
So that's the, the kind of silver liningwhich means that I'm less worried that
they're going to collapse andlose than I, I was before my trip.
I think there's great resolve andthere's smart,
there's technological sophistication onUkraine's side, so they can hold out.
People talked about a dronewall being built almost on
(08:56):
a permanent basis to deterRussia from further advances.
So I think that's,that's the more encouraging military news.
Now of course I've forgottenquestions three and four, but
in any case I want to throw it to HR forsome military expertise.
>> H.R. McMaster (09:11):
Yeah. Hey, Niall, I mean, you were just there
talking to Ukrainians who were in thefight and I had the opportunity to talk to
a number of Ukrainian veteransin London while we were there.
And I think you accurately describedthe way that the conflict has evolved on
the battlefield.
And essentially neither side can gainreally a high degree of mobility and
the ability to sustain an offensiveoperations, an offensive operation.
(09:36):
The Ukrainians have substituted drones formanpower, but it's even difficult for
them to sustain the front with justthe few soldiers that you need,
relatively few soldiers over wide areasto orchestrate that fight against these
Russian limited offensives.
But on the Russian side,they can't sustain those offensives.
Much like, and I've mentioned this before,the Ludendorff offensives in 1918.
(10:00):
They can get a breakthrough here andthere, but they can't sustain it.
And what you're seeing today, yesterdayare some very serious, very successful
Ukrainian local counterattacks againstRussians that now find themselves cut off
in a salient and they're just going to bedestroyed piecemeal by Ukrainian drones.
The most recent technological innovationare the extended length of the FPV or
(10:25):
first person view drones.
One person controlling one drone.
Now that range extended to 30 kilometers.
So the no man's land is extended.
And if you want to do logistics, resupply,ammunition, food, fuel, if you have to do
casualty evacuation, you've gotto do that over contested space.
Now, is that going to remain the same forthe next year?
(10:48):
I don't think so, because you'vealready alluded to this too, Niall.
These defenses forthese drones are improving.
But then the next iterationis going to be swarm drones,
computing power at the edge,mesh communications capabilities and
machine learning capabilitiesthat will allow people,
controllers to go from one to controllingmany and to give missions to these drones.
(11:11):
Now that this new form of warfarehas now replaced the old.
It's been grafted on the old, you know,
which is why it looks a hellof a lot like World War I.
And I think, again, the main problemis gonna be at the operational,
strategic level war really ishow do you blind your enemy?
How do you blind your enemy soyou can restore mobility, so you can,
(11:32):
you can conduct a sustained offensiveoperations and more effective defense.
But hey, on, on the, on the extensionof the war, you know, to Poland and
to Romania with these drones, hey,this fits the pattern for Vladimir Putin.
This is what he does, is he escalates and
escalates andit will not stop until he is stopped.
(11:53):
And what that's going to entail is toimpose costs on Putin to go far beyond
the costs that he factors in when hedecides to send these drones to Poland or
something.
So I think that's what's next.
Or else this will be normalized, right?
This will be like kind of the new normal.
And there are a whole series of actionsthat, I guess I mentioned them in a column
(12:14):
on history we don't know, but I reallydrew on an essay by Marshall Billingsley,
with whom I'd served inthe first Trump administration.
He just laid out eight things we should doright now to put more pressure on Putin.
And then I think that's when the strikeson the refineries are really significant
in combination with.
(12:35):
Right, with these other actions to thenconvince Vladimir Putin, hey, you can't,
you can't continue thiswar at an acceptable cost.
And now's the time to take these actions.
And I, and I hope that the Presidentcomes to that conclusion.
I know Europeans are comingto that conclusion.
So we'll see.
>> Bill Whalen (12:52):
So I hate to jump in here, guys, but we have a very tight show today,
so we have to wrap up this segment.
Let's act it this way, Niall.
The fighting is going to wind down shortlyin Ukraine when the winter kicks in, and
then springtime, it picks up again inthe interim when the fighting is not as
intense as it is right now.
Niall, what are you looking for?
What developments,if any should we look for?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (13:10):
Well, I don't know how much drones really are affected by
the changing season.
So that's one thing to bear in mind.
It's not necessarily going tobe hugely diminished by winter.
I think what I came away from Kyivthinking the most was that this is now
Europe's war because the United Statesis no longer supplying aid to Ukraine,
(13:30):
it's selling weapons to Ukraine.
But that's different fromsending them gratis as aid.
And the Europeans now have toface the reality that only with
European support can Ukraine prevail.
And that means that European rearmamenthas to not only be stepped up,
that's happening fiscally, but
I'm not sure just how fast it'shappening on the ground, in factories.
(13:54):
And crucially, that rearmament hasto be for the war of the future,
not the war of the past.
And a huge problem will arise if Europeansspend their money on the equipment that
they really wanted 10, 20,30 years ago, but couldn't have,
now can have, but is not actuallycrucial from Ukraine's point of view.
So it's Europe's war and
(14:15):
Europe has to figure out how exactlyit can give Ukraine victory.
Because a draw, a tie, isn't a veryappetizing prospect that could go on and
on and on the way things look today.
Gentlemen, anything you wanna add?
>> H.R. McMaster (14:29):
Hey, Bill, can I mention a great essay by our
colleague Michael Berstrom onthe decline of the Russian oil sector?
He said that Russia is over as an energysuperpower, it's a fantastic essay.
>> Bill Whalen (14:41):
Okay, thank you, HR.
Onto our second topic, and that isthe assassination of the conservative
activist Charlie Kirk in the aftermath,which may cost
the career of one late nighttelevision host on American television.
Let's take it from this angle.
So the three of you would have been inEurope at the time that Kirk was murdered.
So, Niall,
maybe you can explain the significanceof this to a non American audience.
(15:05):
In other words, here in the USwe've had this conversation for
a week now about what it all means.
But if you were explaining this,Niall, to somebody in the UK,
somebody on the continent, as to what thissays about American, American culture,
what would you say?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (15:17):
The news broke while we were at dinner
in London with group of of guestsfrom UK politics and media.
And I think it affected all of us,
including those who don'tspend much time in the U.S.
(15:39):
I knew Charlie Kirk,spent time with him earlier this year
in Los Angeles,was deeply impressed by his sincerity and
commitment to free speechas a way of changing minds.
So I was deeply rattled, shocked, anddespondent at the news but I was struck.
(15:59):
Struck by the fact that everybodyaround that table realized that
this was a terrible moment inmodern American political history,
a terrible moment in the sense that it'sanother step down that road of political
violence that we've really beengoing down maybe since 2020.
(16:23):
We, after all, only narrowly avoidedPresident Trump suffering this fate
in Butler, Pennsylvania.
So from a European orBritish vantage point, it was just another
example of a disturbing tendency forthe United States to revert to
patterns of political violence thatwe thought belonged to the past.
(16:45):
I'm thinking here not just of 1968, but
the assassination attempton Ronald Reagan.
So, yeah, I think,I think everybody in Europe,
even if they'd never heard of Charlie Kirkor only vaguely heard of him,
understood that this was a verysignificant moment indeed.
>> Bill Whalen (17:02):
H.R. >> H.R. McMaster
about, beyond just our concern forhim, his family,
is a concern that this indicatesweakness to our adversaries.
So I think this kind ofpolitical violence, of course,
is terrible from a domestic perspectiveand our own psyches and our common ideas,
(17:22):
Americans, but it communicatesweakness to our adversaries as well.
And in this recent columnon history we don't know,
I just alluded to Wang Huning, who wasalways in the ear of Xi Jinping and
who wrote a 1991 book calledAmerica Against America,
in which he predicted that we weregoing to tear ourselves down and
(17:44):
then that would allow China to bethe kind of the global superpower.
So I'm concerned about that as well,that this sort of cycle of violence,
this political violence, communicateslack of confidence in our system and
our political institutions and processes.
(18:04):
And this is what our adversaries want.
And actually they foment it.
I think it's really interesting and Ithink our viewers should pay attention to
this, is how China, Russia andIran in particular,
tried to bend this assassination inthe direction of their interests and
to drive Americans furtherapart from one another.
So maybe we can draw some inspiration fromthat and come together for meaningful,
(18:27):
respectful discussionsabout our future and
start maybe with what we can agree on andhow we can work together.
>> John H. Cochrane (18:34):
I would add a particular tragedy is, of course,
what Charlie Kirk's stood for,is respectful, peaceful, acrimonious,
but respectful and peaceful dialoguein place of political violence.
Thank goodness the shooter was onceagain an individual nutcase and
(18:55):
not a member of some organization whichwould have made life much, much worse.
But of course, the normal thingone is supposed to do here is
if anybody speaks publicly,you say, this is terrible.
We need to all talk toeach Other respectfully.
And there was instead an outpouring,
(19:16):
primarily from the left this time ofgreat, how wonderful that this guy got it.
He deserved it.
Which is very revealing of,I think that is the underlying trend.
That is the one that's most worrisome now.
But on the other hand, the healthypart is that that was not embraced.
(19:38):
And many of those people lost their jobs.
Thank God they didn't have,you know, the federal government,
we'll get to that question,censoring them.
But polite society said,no, you don't act this way.
So revealing of a deep current thatthe Luigi la Mangione current that people
celebrate this kind of violence, butalso revealing that that is still,
(20:00):
that attitude is still completelyout of the mainstream left and
right in the U.S.>> Bill Whalen: Now,
Somebody who did speak up and may pay aprice for this is the American television
host Jimmy Kimmel, who is rightnow has been definitely suspended,
in the words of his network, fornew show after he said the following.
>> Speake 6 (20:17):
Some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately
trying to characterize this kid whomurdered Charlie Kirk as anything other
than one of them and doing everything theycan to, to score political points from it.
>> Bill Whalen (20:29):
What happened after he said that was ABC affiliates said they
wanted to drop his show.
And then the head of the fcc, the FederalCommunications Commission, weighed in and
saying, basically,if ABC didn't do anything about this,
the FCC might do something about it.
Pretty ominous words.
I'm gonna get John's thoughts in the fcc.
But Niall, so Jimmy Kimmel may beout of a job for saying words on tv.
Should he be canceled?
(20:50):
Would you call this cancel culture?
Or is this maybe something different?
Maybe we could call suspension culture?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (20:55):
Well, obviously it would be a bitter irony if
the murderer of Charlie Kirk,who passionately
believed in free speech,were to furnish a pretext for
free speech violationsby government agencies.
And we should say that right out.
(21:18):
I was also disturbed by otherstatements by officials that implied
that there was such a thing ashate speech, which somehow was not
protected by the First Amendment,which is simply not the case.
So that's the general point, butthere's a kind of specific point.
(21:40):
What Kimmel was doing was whata number of people tried to do in
the immediate aftermathof Charlie Kirk's murder,
which was to claim that the murdererwas on the right, was part of the,
quote, MAGA crowd,which was completely baseless.
And indeed, it rapidly becameapparent that although the young
(22:03):
man who committed the crime camefrom a conservative family,
he himself had driftedto the radical left, and
indeed may have been motivated,it's not yet clear,
may have been motivated by a kind oftransgender, romantic entanglement.
So the problem with whatKimmel did was that it
(22:25):
was an entirely false political claim.
And that seems to me worthy of.
Of condemnation in an atmospherelike the one we find ourselves in.
He was one of a great many peoplewho made this argument, and
polling revealed a really large numberof people started to believe it.
(22:48):
Well, that's a problem,because if we're not correctly identifying
what prompts violence of the sort thatCharlie Kirk's death illustrated,
then we're not going to get anywhereclose to solving the problem.
And as John pointed out, the case of LuigiMandioni illustrates that there is now
an extremely toxic strainof political violence,
(23:10):
the celebration of political violenceon the far left in the United States.
And we need to clearlyidentify that reality.
It's a sad state of affairs whensomebody who at least used to have
a large TV audience cancompletely misinform the public.
And the journalist who has consistentlyargued that there is a problem of this
(23:33):
sort, Andy Ngo, has himself had toendure violence and intimidation.
And I just wanna single outAndy's worth work here,
because if anybody hada kind of good read and
an insightful read on the motivationsbehind Charlie Kirk's death, it was.
And, you know, I think that's worthsaying at a time when people like
(23:55):
Jimmy Kimmel are simplymisrepresenting what's happening.
Happening.
>> Bill Whalen (24:00):
So John Cochrane, how long before we get a grumpy columnist column on
the need to abolishthe Federal Communications Commission?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (24:05):
[LAUGH] >> Bill Whalen
does->> John H. Cochrane: It seemed to me too.
>> Bill Whalen (24:08):
It is a vestige of the New Deal, it's over 90 years old.
>> John H. Cochrane (24:11):
So yeah, I mean, the sad thing is there's so
much hypocrisy all around.
Remember cancel culture andthe Twitter files and so forth.
I wish the Democrats had a leg to stand onwith their sudden discovery of the wonders
of the First Amendment.
We do have to distinguishbetween private and government.
Government shutting you up isthe violation of First Amendment.
(24:33):
Unpleasant as it is, private peoplefiring you for it is not illegal.
Yeah, the problem is whenthe government has a power,
it's going to use it, andthe government is political.
And the FCC does regulate content and
has since 1934.
(24:53):
And it's not just about explicitlysaying you may not say X.
They also get to approve your mergers.
And this is merger approval,any intellectual basis of antitrust has
gone out long ago,you need to curry favor.
So merely, hm, we're unhappy,is going to be very difficult, and
that's why it's not justexplicit regulation.
(25:15):
It's this kind of political cronyism,
political favoritism thatis going through Russia.
What's the answer,abolish the FCC, abolish the FDC.
If the government has this power,the government is going to use it.
And more broadly, we are in an era,unfortunately, escalating tit for tat.
I bring brass knuckles to a bar andnext time you bring a knife and
(25:38):
next time I bring a gun.
And that's the way it'sgoing in many areas.
The use of the Department of Justice forlawfare, for example,
I hoped we would stop that, but we're not.
So at what point do wesay enough is enough?
I wanna go back to a limited governmentthat doesn't do this kind of thing,
rather than, that's handy, I'll takethat and use it my way next time.
(25:59):
Cuz believe me, President Newsom isgoing to look at these precedents and
say, that's handy.
>> Bill Whalen (26:06):
There's one other angle here, gentlemen, and that is institutional
decline/institutional drift,and H.R., here I turn to you.
You guys all are warriors in this field,you write for alternative media.
And Niall has taken upon himself to createa university in Texas as an alternative
to academic bias.
But late-night television, in America,at least, has fallen prey to this.
And Niall,I think one of the problems America has,
(26:27):
it doesn't have a Graham Norton show.
There is no simple entertainment showwhere people sit on a red couch and
just make light of things.
Late night's become much too political.
But H.R., you see this, andit's both the audience on late night,
Niall mentioned declining audiences.
Kimmel's show gets about 100 to 200,000people in the 18 to 47 demographic,
is advertising.
We get more people watching this showthan he does on national television, so
(26:49):
that tells you about that.
But it also has drifted to the left,H.R., and you know this personally.
You wanna tell us about that?
>> H.R. McMaster (26:55):
Yeah, well, there is kind of an orthodoxy now that has
gripped even comedians, right, whoshould be sort of more insulated to it.
And when my book At War with Ourselvescame out, my publicist said,
hey, the Stephen Colbertshow said you could come on.
But if you come on,you have to condemn President Trump and
(27:17):
recommend that nobody vote for him.
And I said, well, I'm not gonna do that,so that's an easy choice.
But I think that,I don't know if it was just a producer or
if it was Stephen Colbert directly, but
there has been this orthodoxy thathas gripped late-night television.
So many of these monologues,honestly, the few that I do see,
(27:38):
they're just like diatribes.
They're not funny, which might be whykinda the ratings are going down.
So yeah, I worry about that, butthen I also worry about the government.
We don't want the Trump administrationto crack down on media, right?
The correction to this is bad ratings,right?
It's sort of people saying, enough ofthat, and choosing to go to other media,
(28:02):
like what Bari Weiss did, forexample, with The Free Press.
And anyway,I think the market should correct for
it rather than the US government.
>> John H. Cochrane (28:11):
Competition is the salve for all wounds.
Remember, the FCC was put into place toregulate radio [LAUGH] when there was two
national networks, andthen there was three national TV networks.
There's plenty of room forcompetition now.
We do not need the government to managethe monopoly on late-night TV show.
And there's always the option ofturn the darn thing off [LAUGH].
>> Bill Whalen (28:33):
All right, next, a question for the three of you.
Do you agree that Charlie Kirk's deathis a watershed moment, and if so,
what comes next?
And if Jimmy Kimmel is outright canceled,his contract is up any way in May, but
if ABC decides between now andMay to cancel the show,
is that likewise a watershed moment?
H.R., you wanna go first?
>> H.R. McMaster (28:51):
It's not unprecedented, right?
If you look at really far left violence,this kind of brand of violence,
how about the 70s?
How about the Red Brigades, seemingly,these liberation army, for example?
I mean, so many examples ofthis kinda violence in the 70s.
But hey, I think people should payattention to what Governor Spencer Cox
(29:11):
said, the governor of Utah.
That guy's fantastic, I think,
he did describe it as a watershedmoment where we face a choice.
Do we go down the path, as John said,of coming to the bar fight,
bumping up with the next weapon?
Or do we decide, okay,let's be civil to each other,
let's make clear that this kind ofviolence is intolerable, horrific.
(29:35):
But then, also, recognize that wheneverwe engage in this kind of vitriolic
discourse and attack each other from adhominem perspectives instead of really
exploring the issues and how we can worktogether, then we're contributing to
an environment that eventually canlead to more of this violence.
So I just recommend,pay attention to the governor of Utah.
>> Bill Whalen (29:58):
John?
>> John H. Cochrane (29:59):
I wish it were a watershed moment because I wish this
wonderful young man's life could attainmore mythic status, but I don't think so.
The watershed moment comes when we stopsaying, I'm gonna take those huge federal
powers and use them my way andvilify the opposition.
And we say, no,that's not the way we wanna go.
(30:21):
As we've discussed,
it has been nice to see the conversationtilt in that direction, but
I don't think this particular one isgoing to be the one that changes it.
>> Bill Whalen (30:32):
Niall?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (30:33):
Charlie founded Turning Point USA.
And of course, the kinda turningpoint that he had in mind was
not one that would call for his own death.
I just fervently hope that whateverpeople's political persuasion,
I don't care how far to the left you are,or, for that matter,
(30:55):
how far they're right, you shouldunderstand the point of Charlie Kirk.
The reason he was on a college campuswas that he believed in reasoned debate.
He was trying almost as a sorta one-mancrusader to take on a lot of the radical
progressive ideology on collegecampuses and just argue it out.
(31:18):
And he died with a microphone in his hand.
The point about Charlie Kirk'slife was speech, free speech.
And the best turning point that couldpossibly commemorate all he achieved
is that everyone right across thepolitical spectrum gets the message that
the United States of America is about freespeech, civil discourse, not civil war.
(31:44):
That, I hope,is the turning point we've reached.
>> John H. Cochrane (31:46):
Could I add, too,
[COUGH] we also needto stop catastrophism.
What justifies these kinds ofextreme feelings is the rhetoric of
a catastrophe's coming.
This election is the endof democracy Democracy.
Trump is the new Hitler,Biden is the new Stalin.
The planet is going to burnin two years unless we all,
(32:09):
you know, de industrializethis kind of catastrophism.
If you believe that,well then of course it does.
That would justify the end of democracy,would justify political violence.
We had a lot of political violencein 1860 in, in, in the US well,
there was a catastrophe at hand.
So not just be respectful of each otherbut notch down the rhetoric a little.
(32:34):
Let's be realistic about what we areactually arguing about and what we're not.
>> Bill Whalen (32:39):
That's well put, I would add for our audience,
please go onto social media, go to X, andgo to the University Austin's feed, and
there you'll find a speech thatNiall gave earlier this week.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (32:48):
Charlie Kirk, who dedicated his life to debate and
who died with a mic,not a knife in his hand.
One of these things, Charlie personified,
I think,that innate American love of liberty.
(33:09):
Ladies and gentlemen,we at UATX stand with
Charlie in the sense that we stand for
liberty and we stand for truth.
>> Bill Whalen (33:23):
I think it's on Constitution Day.
But Niall just brilliantly takes theConstitution, the founder of the republic
universities, Charlie Cook andjust brilliantly melts it all together.
So do yourself a favor andwatch that, listen to it,
read it if you have a chance.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (33:36):
Thanks, Bill.
>> Bill Whalen (33:37):
You're welcome.
Cuz it's a short show, gentlemen, we'renot gonna do a full blown lightning round.
We're just gonna end with one topic and
that is remembering the late RobertRedford who passed away at the age of 89.
A true movie star, we would agree,unlike today's leading actors and
actresses don't seem to havethat same kind of aura.
>> Speaker 7 (33:52):
What's the matter with you?
>> Speaker 8 (33:53):
I can't swim.
>> Bill Whalen (33:55):
Question for the three of you gentlemen.
Do you have a favorite Redford movie?
I have one.
Since I toil in California andpolitics here at Hoover,
naturally I gravitate to the candidate,which is a 1972 movie starring Redford.
He plays a gentleman named Bill McKay whois an underdog Democratic Senate candidate
in California.
That's how old this movie is, by the way.
Underdog Democrats in California.
(34:16):
But it's just a timeless movie becauseit shows that you start running for
office with ideals and vision and then youquickly get in the business of getting
elected, which becomes justa very cynical empty exercise and
has one of the greatendings in movie history.
Now what do we do?
So, HR I turn to you fora favorite Redford movie and
I'M guessing it's goingto be a bridge too far.
>> H.R. McMaster (34:35):
Yeah. Okay,
I'll just be superpredictable because you know,
he had a great character in that movie.
I forget his name, but he was a major.
>> Bill Whalen (34:42):
Major Julian Cook.
>> H.R. McMaster (34:44):
Okay, Major Julian cook.
In the 82nd he gets like thisimpossible mission, right?
Turns out that the Germans are defendingboth sides of the bridge and
he has to do assault across the river,you know, in, in an RB15,
you know, you know, inflatable boatusing their rifles to get across.
And he's just so stoic about.
(35:04):
He knows he's getting justa real tough mission.
But he's just, okay,all right, bring it on.
So yeah, that's my favorite [LAUGH].
>> Bill Whalen (35:12):
Great backstory of that movie.
The great Sean.
It's an incredible cast.
Look it up.
Movies aren't made like this anymore.
The great Sean Connery is in it.
And when Connery heard what making,
Connery walked off the setto add more money.
So good for Sir Sean.
Robert Redford played, he playedparatroopers, he played politicians,
he played spies, he, he played cowboys.
(35:33):
He never played an economist.
I guess it was Russell Crowe did.
But do you have a favorite Redford movie?
>> John H. Cochrane (35:39):
The problem is I like a lot of them.
I mean The Sting you haven't mentioned.
I thought that was Chicago.
That had some Chicago in it andI love the movie.
Redford's problem was hewas too good looking.
It's just distracting.
Not something any of us have anyexperience with, but you know,
it's just distracting looking atthe guy you want to see, you know,
evaluate someone as an actor.
(35:59):
Look at Paul Giamatti.
Now there's a guy you really see hisacting ability, you know, so, so too bad,
Paul, you were so good looking, it'shard to tell what a good actor you were.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (36:10):
All The President's Men is the one that one can't really get
away from because it's inspireda generation of journalists not
only to believe that theycould topple president just by
doorsteping people untilthey nail the story, but
also to believe that they could beas good looking as Robert Redford,
(36:33):
which no journalist has ever been orwill ever be.
>> Bill Whalen (36:37):
Yeah, good point.
By the way, quick counterfactual, Niall.
If Robert F Kennedy is the president in1970s and it's his aides who are burglars,
do you think Ben Bradley goesforward with investigating Kennedy?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (36:49):
No. And I think that's part of the key
to understanding Watergate,that Watergate happens.
Because stuff that the Kennedys andLyndon Johnson had kind of
routinely done when it was done byNixon became a fantastic way for
the New York Times,the Department of justice,
(37:09):
the Kennedy Democrats,all the people who hated Nixon to get him.
And that was the thing that always rankledwith Nixon as well as with the people who
did time for Watergate.
So in that counterfactual,it does seem much less plausible.
What would National Reviewhave brought down the Kennedy,
A Bobby Kennedy presidency over, overa break in to the Republican headquarters.
(37:35):
I don't think,I don't think Buckley was that powerful.
But I agree with John,it was always a distraction.
And that's why I quite likeall the President's Men.
Because you've got Dustin Hoffman wholooks like a real journalist opposite
this Adonis like figure who's sortof pretending to be a journalist and
that sort of.
I thought that worked.
(37:55):
It's the way the two play off oneanother that's so good in that film.
>> Bill Whalen (38:01):
Okay, well gentlemen, we leave it there.
Great conversation, good to see you.
I'm glad your travels went well and
we'll be back a new episode very soon,early October I believe.
On behalf of my colleagues, Sir NiallFerguson, HR McMaster, John Cochran,
all of us here at the Hoover Institution,we hope you enjoyed today's abbreviate.
If you want to follow more about Niall,John, and H.R., sign up for
the Hoover Daily Report.
(38:22):
Also, they all write, they Substack,they do columns of the Free Press, and
so forth.
You will not lack material for them.
Definitely check them out.
And that's it forthis episode until next time.
Take care.
Thanks for watching.
>> Speaker 9 (38:33):
Okay, we gotta get out there.
See, I told you they'd be.
>> Speaker 10 (38:38):
Marvin, what do we do now?
>> Speaker 9 (38:41):
Wait a minute.
What?
>> Speaker 11 (38:44):
Move back just a little bit.
Strong men built the west and won the wars and
built the building thatwe're in right now.
And without strong men,
then you all of a sudden seecivilization unfold upon itself.
And we're seeing that happen in real time.
[MUSIC]
>> Bill Whalen (00:18):
It's Friday, September 19, 2025.
And welcome back to GoodFellows, a HooverInstitution broadcast examining social,
economic, political, andgeopolitical concerns.
I'm Bill Whalen,I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow.
I'll be your moderator today.
Looking forward to a spirited conversationwith the three gentlemen we jokingly refer
to as our GoodFellows.
That would be, of course,the historian Sir Niall Ferguson,
(00:39):
the economist John Cochrane, and formerpresidential national security advisor,
Lt Gen H.R. McMaster.
Niall, John, and H.R.are Hoover Senior Fellows.
So, gentlemen, you've all been busy, evenbusier by your normally busy standards,
since the last time we convened.
The three of you actually met in Londonnot too long ago on some Hoover business.
If I can get the travel straight here,then I think John and H.R.
(01:01):
Peeled off and went to Berlin after that,Niall, meanwhile, headed to Kyiv for his,
for I believe, a security conference.
Niall, if I'm not mistaken.
Let's start with Kyiv, Niall.
So not the first time you've been tothat country since the war broke out,
now 43 months ago, incredibly enough.
I'm curious, Niall, as to what has changedat all since the last time you were there.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (01:22):
This is my fourth visit to Kyiv in wartime.
I'd been there many times before, butthe striking thing was that the war is so
much more a part of life in the capitalcity than it was previously,
because this year has seena huge escalation in Russian
airstrikes on all Ukrainian cities,but including Kyiv.
(01:42):
And these are drone strikes, butalso strikes with cruise missiles.
They're now happening pretty much nightly.
I know this because you have to downloadan app to warn you of air raids.
Rather disconcertingly,
the air raid warning went off when Iwas on stage in mid-panel discussion.
(02:03):
I'm glad to say that therewasn't a strike, but
there had been a cruise missilestrike not far from the hotel
where I was staying, not longbefore I paid a visit to that site.
And it's, it's very sobering,
really sobering to see an entire apartmentbuilding taken out by a missile.
(02:26):
Not, not by accident, of course,because these things are,
are capable of, of accurate targeting.
And I think 23 Ukrainian men, women andchildren died in that one strike.
So it's, it's a different atmospherefrom the atmosphere early on in the war.
I can remember back in 2022,the time I went there,
(02:48):
which was around the same time of year,early September.
At that point, the Ukrainians werecockahoop because the Russian army was in
flight from Kharkiv and Kherson.
The mood is much moresomber in Kyiv today.
>> Bill Whalen (03:02):
John, I know you have a lot of questions,
including one of tactics.
Why the Russians bomb civilianpopulations rather than industrial sites.
>> John H. Cochrane (03:09):
Well, yes, I've got questions for Niall,
which hopefully means I'll bea little shorter than usual [LAUGH].
Yes.
Why are they bombing apartment buildings?
Do they not know how totarget military things?
Are the Ukrainians maybe saving theirdefenses for important targets?
We all know that that doesn't work.
Seems strange what's going on withPoland and sending drones over Poland.
(03:30):
I'll be curious to both ofyour reactions to that.
Why are we doing so little about it?
We talked about.
So Niall was pretty militarily pessimisticin his great article summarizing Kyiv.
But there's some economic pessimism, too.
Blowing up refineries feels great, butwe know that substitution is possible.
(03:53):
In the end, Russia could exportcrude oil and import gas.
It's important to do sanctions,
but it's will the war reallybe won by that sort of thing?
And last, where's the deal?
I think what the west is aiming for isNorth Korea, South Korea, China, Taiwan,
East Germany, West Germany,hopefully not North Vietnam.
(04:13):
South Vietnam, let's lay off.
And then Ukraine can join us andbecome prosperous, and
the other side can rot untilVladimir goes on to his reward.
But the other side does not eventhink about that as a deal.
So talking of a deal seems premature.
Okay, there's four questions.
Go for it, guys.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (04:32):
Well, number one, they are deliberately attacking
civilian targets, andthey're doing it almost nightly.
And that's a little counterintuitiveif you know the literature
on strategic bombing in World War IIwhich says that it didn't work,
(04:54):
that civilian morale wasn't damaged,
not by the blitz when Germany wasbombing England, and not by the.
The bombing of Germany bythe Royal Air Force and
the US Air Force later in the war.
But, you know,I do think it affects morale.
In 2025, a young woman toldme of her experience when
(05:17):
she couldn't get intothe air raid shelter and.
And there were explosionsgoing on not far from her.
She said she's stillaffected by it months later.
I think somehow there's a difference.
There's a difference in the sense that Ithink society is different in the 2000s
(05:38):
from the 1940s.
There's a difference in the sense thatthese missiles are precision missiles
that people say, well, if you hearthe explosion, you're okay, because you,
if you don't hear it, you're not.
So that makes a difference compared withthe pretty indiscriminate bombing that
characterized World War II.
So I think there's a determined Russianeffort to undermine Ukrainian morale,
(06:03):
and it's had an effect in the sense that Ithink the mood is somber and indeed grim.
On the other hand, I saw no sign thatUkrainians were willing to fold.
They want the war to end, that's clear.
They want there to be an end to this war,but
they don't want to be on Putin's terms.
So in that sense, it's not working.
I think that was question one.
(06:25):
Question two.
Was that targeting the, the Ukrainians,targeting the oil facilities, John?
>> John H. Cochrane (06:31):
Yeah, it feels good, but is that going to work, or
can the Russians substitutetheir way around it?
Which is->> Sir Niall Ferguson: You answered
the question, John.
You were pessimistic militarily.
And I was wondering if the economicalternative is actually realistic.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (06:44):
Look, it's, it's, it's better than nothing.
It's good that Ukraine has the capacityto carry out deep strikes on, on Russian
infrastructure as well as militarysites which they, they, they've hit.
Is it going to decide the outcome?
No, because it's simply noton a large enough scale.
And as you say, if you blow up a refinery,the Russians can still ship the crude.
(07:04):
So this isn't going to decidethe war in Ukraine's favor, sadly.
But I think if one takes a step back, andI'd be interested to get HR's views on
this, what I'm struck by, and I spent alot of time talking to people about this,
is the extent to which the warreally has changed in its character.
It's a drone war now.
Artillery, armor, infantry,all play a much smaller role.
(07:26):
The front line is essentiallya kind of 20 to 25 kilometer death
strip in which thereare drones in the air.
And if you hear the drone, you're dead.
And so it's a very, very differentwar from the one at the beginning or
even a year ago, because there's been sucha massive ramping up in production of
drones on both sides.
(07:47):
So in some ways,I came away thinking that's actually
quite good news for Ukraine,because a war of men is a war.
It's really hard for Ukraine to win,because they're just outnumbered,
they're outmanned,they can't mass recruit,
much less conscript on the scale that theRussians can with their larger population.
(08:11):
But they can hold their own in a drone warbecause they have a technological edge.
They're just qualitativelyclearly superior.
The Russians can win quantitatively, sothey're churning out these shahid drones,
but they can't actually competeat the level of quality.
And it's now clear that Ukrainehas the most advanced drone
defense industry in the world.
(08:34):
So that's the, the kind of silver liningwhich means that I'm less worried that
they're going to collapse andlose than I, I was before my trip.
I think there's great resolve andthere's smart,
there's technological sophistication onUkraine's side, so they can hold out.
People talked about a dronewall being built almost on
(08:56):
a permanent basis to deterRussia from further advances.
So I think that's,that's the more encouraging military news.
Now of course I've forgottenquestions three and four, but
in any case I want to throw it to HR forsome military expertise.
>> H.R. McMaster (09:11):
Yeah. Hey, Niall, I mean, you were just there
talking to Ukrainians who were in thefight and I had the opportunity to talk to
a number of Ukrainian veteransin London while we were there.
And I think you accurately describedthe way that the conflict has evolved on
the battlefield.
And essentially neither side can gainreally a high degree of mobility and
the ability to sustain an offensiveoperations, an offensive operation.
(09:36):
The Ukrainians have substituted drones formanpower, but it's even difficult for
them to sustain the front with justthe few soldiers that you need,
relatively few soldiers over wide areasto orchestrate that fight against these
Russian limited offensives.
But on the Russian side,they can't sustain those offensives.
Much like, and I've mentioned this before,the Ludendorff offensives in 1918.
(10:00):
They can get a breakthrough here andthere, but they can't sustain it.
And what you're seeing today, yesterdayare some very serious, very successful
Ukrainian local counterattacks againstRussians that now find themselves cut off
in a salient and they're just going to bedestroyed piecemeal by Ukrainian drones.
The most recent technological innovationare the extended length of the FPV or
(10:25):
first person view drones.
One person controlling one drone.
Now that range extended to 30 kilometers.
So the no man's land is extended.
And if you want to do logistics, resupply,ammunition, food, fuel, if you have to do
casualty evacuation, you've gotto do that over contested space.
Now, is that going to remain the same forthe next year?
(10:48):
I don't think so, because you'vealready alluded to this too, Niall.
These defenses forthese drones are improving.
But then the next iterationis going to be swarm drones,
computing power at the edge,mesh communications capabilities and
machine learning capabilitiesthat will allow people,
controllers to go from one to controllingmany and to give missions to these drones.
(11:11):
Now that this new form of warfarehas now replaced the old.
It's been grafted on the old, you know,
which is why it looks a hellof a lot like World War I.
And I think, again, the main problemis gonna be at the operational,
strategic level war really ishow do you blind your enemy?
How do you blind your enemy soyou can restore mobility, so you can,
(11:32):
you can conduct a sustained offensiveoperations and more effective defense.
But hey, on, on the, on the extensionof the war, you know, to Poland and
to Romania with these drones, hey,this fits the pattern for Vladimir Putin.
This is what he does, is he escalates and
escalates andit will not stop until he is stopped.
(11:53):
And what that's going to entail is toimpose costs on Putin to go far beyond
the costs that he factors in when hedecides to send these drones to Poland or
something.
So I think that's what's next.
Or else this will be normalized, right?
This will be like kind of the new normal.
And there are a whole series of actionsthat, I guess I mentioned them in a column
(12:14):
on history we don't know, but I reallydrew on an essay by Marshall Billingsley,
with whom I'd served inthe first Trump administration.
He just laid out eight things we should doright now to put more pressure on Putin.
And then I think that's when the strikeson the refineries are really significant
in combination with.
(12:35):
Right, with these other actions to thenconvince Vladimir Putin, hey, you can't,
you can't continue thiswar at an acceptable cost.
And now's the time to take these actions.
And I, and I hope that the Presidentcomes to that conclusion.
I know Europeans are comingto that conclusion.
So we'll see.
>> Bill Whalen (12:52):
So I hate to jump in here, guys, but we have a very tight show today,
so we have to wrap up this segment.
Let's act it this way, Niall.
The fighting is going to wind down shortlyin Ukraine when the winter kicks in, and
then springtime, it picks up again inthe interim when the fighting is not as
intense as it is right now.
Niall, what are you looking for?
What developments,if any should we look for?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (13:10):
Well, I don't know how much drones really are affected by
the changing season.
So that's one thing to bear in mind.
It's not necessarily going tobe hugely diminished by winter.
I think what I came away from Kyivthinking the most was that this is now
Europe's war because the United Statesis no longer supplying aid to Ukraine,
(13:30):
it's selling weapons to Ukraine.
But that's different fromsending them gratis as aid.
And the Europeans now have toface the reality that only with
European support can Ukraine prevail.
And that means that European rearmamenthas to not only be stepped up,
that's happening fiscally, but
I'm not sure just how fast it'shappening on the ground, in factories.
(13:54):
And crucially, that rearmament hasto be for the war of the future,
not the war of the past.
And a huge problem will arise if Europeansspend their money on the equipment that
they really wanted 10, 20,30 years ago, but couldn't have,
now can have, but is not actuallycrucial from Ukraine's point of view.
So it's Europe's war and
(14:15):
Europe has to figure out how exactlyit can give Ukraine victory.
Because a draw, a tie, isn't a veryappetizing prospect that could go on and
on and on the way things look today.
Gentlemen, anything you wanna add?
>> H.R. McMaster (14:29):
Hey, Bill, can I mention a great essay by our
colleague Michael Berstrom onthe decline of the Russian oil sector?
He said that Russia is over as an energysuperpower, it's a fantastic essay.
>> Bill Whalen (14:41):
Okay, thank you, HR.
Onto our second topic, and that isthe assassination of the conservative
activist Charlie Kirk in the aftermath,which may cost
the career of one late nighttelevision host on American television.
Let's take it from this angle.
So the three of you would have been inEurope at the time that Kirk was murdered.
So, Niall,
maybe you can explain the significanceof this to a non American audience.
(15:05):
In other words, here in the USwe've had this conversation for
a week now about what it all means.
But if you were explaining this,Niall, to somebody in the UK,
somebody on the continent, as to what thissays about American, American culture,
what would you say?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (15:17):
The news broke while we were at dinner
in London with group of of guestsfrom UK politics and media.
And I think it affected all of us,
including those who don'tspend much time in the U.S.
(15:39):
I knew Charlie Kirk,spent time with him earlier this year
in Los Angeles,was deeply impressed by his sincerity and
commitment to free speechas a way of changing minds.
So I was deeply rattled, shocked, anddespondent at the news but I was struck.
(15:59):
Struck by the fact that everybodyaround that table realized that
this was a terrible moment inmodern American political history,
a terrible moment in the sense that it'sanother step down that road of political
violence that we've really beengoing down maybe since 2020.
(16:23):
We, after all, only narrowly avoidedPresident Trump suffering this fate
in Butler, Pennsylvania.
So from a European orBritish vantage point, it was just another
example of a disturbing tendency forthe United States to revert to
patterns of political violence thatwe thought belonged to the past.
(16:45):
I'm thinking here not just of 1968, but
the assassination attempton Ronald Reagan.
So, yeah, I think,I think everybody in Europe,
even if they'd never heard of Charlie Kirkor only vaguely heard of him,
understood that this was a verysignificant moment indeed.
>> Bill Whalen (17:02):
H.R. >> H.R. McMaster
about, beyond just our concern forhim, his family,
is a concern that this indicatesweakness to our adversaries.
So I think this kind ofpolitical violence, of course,
is terrible from a domestic perspectiveand our own psyches and our common ideas,
(17:22):
Americans, but it communicatesweakness to our adversaries as well.
And in this recent columnon history we don't know,
I just alluded to Wang Huning, who wasalways in the ear of Xi Jinping and
who wrote a 1991 book calledAmerica Against America,
in which he predicted that we weregoing to tear ourselves down and
(17:44):
then that would allow China to bethe kind of the global superpower.
So I'm concerned about that as well,that this sort of cycle of violence,
this political violence, communicateslack of confidence in our system and
our political institutions and processes.
(18:04):
And this is what our adversaries want.
And actually they foment it.
I think it's really interesting and Ithink our viewers should pay attention to
this, is how China, Russia andIran in particular,
tried to bend this assassination inthe direction of their interests and
to drive Americans furtherapart from one another.
So maybe we can draw some inspiration fromthat and come together for meaningful,
(18:27):
respectful discussionsabout our future and
start maybe with what we can agree on andhow we can work together.
>> John H. Cochrane (18:34):
I would add a particular tragedy is, of course,
what Charlie Kirk's stood for,is respectful, peaceful, acrimonious,
but respectful and peaceful dialoguein place of political violence.
Thank goodness the shooter was onceagain an individual nutcase and
(18:55):
not a member of some organization whichwould have made life much, much worse.
But of course, the normal thingone is supposed to do here is
if anybody speaks publicly,you say, this is terrible.
We need to all talk toeach Other respectfully.
And there was instead an outpouring,
(19:16):
primarily from the left this time ofgreat, how wonderful that this guy got it.
He deserved it.
Which is very revealing of,I think that is the underlying trend.
That is the one that's most worrisome now.
But on the other hand, the healthypart is that that was not embraced.
(19:38):
And many of those people lost their jobs.
Thank God they didn't have,you know, the federal government,
we'll get to that question,censoring them.
But polite society said,no, you don't act this way.
So revealing of a deep current thatthe Luigi la Mangione current that people
celebrate this kind of violence, butalso revealing that that is still,
(20:00):
that attitude is still completelyout of the mainstream left and
right in the U.S.>> Bill Whalen: Now,
Somebody who did speak up and may pay aprice for this is the American television
host Jimmy Kimmel, who is rightnow has been definitely suspended,
in the words of his network, fornew show after he said the following.
>> Speake 6 (20:17):
Some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately
trying to characterize this kid whomurdered Charlie Kirk as anything other
than one of them and doing everything theycan to, to score political points from it.
>> Bill Whalen (20:29):
What happened after he said that was ABC affiliates said they
wanted to drop his show.
And then the head of the fcc, the FederalCommunications Commission, weighed in and
saying, basically,if ABC didn't do anything about this,
the FCC might do something about it.
Pretty ominous words.
I'm gonna get John's thoughts in the fcc.
But Niall, so Jimmy Kimmel may beout of a job for saying words on tv.
Should he be canceled?
(20:50):
Would you call this cancel culture?
Or is this maybe something different?
Maybe we could call suspension culture?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (20:55):
Well, obviously it would be a bitter irony if
the murderer of Charlie Kirk,who passionately
believed in free speech,were to furnish a pretext for
free speech violationsby government agencies.
And we should say that right out.
(21:18):
I was also disturbed by otherstatements by officials that implied
that there was such a thing ashate speech, which somehow was not
protected by the First Amendment,which is simply not the case.
So that's the general point, butthere's a kind of specific point.
(21:40):
What Kimmel was doing was whata number of people tried to do in
the immediate aftermathof Charlie Kirk's murder,
which was to claim that the murdererwas on the right, was part of the,
quote, MAGA crowd,which was completely baseless.
And indeed, it rapidly becameapparent that although the young
(22:03):
man who committed the crime camefrom a conservative family,
he himself had driftedto the radical left, and
indeed may have been motivated,it's not yet clear,
may have been motivated by a kind oftransgender, romantic entanglement.
So the problem with whatKimmel did was that it
(22:25):
was an entirely false political claim.
And that seems to me worthy of.
Of condemnation in an atmospherelike the one we find ourselves in.
He was one of a great many peoplewho made this argument, and
polling revealed a really large numberof people started to believe it.
(22:48):
Well, that's a problem,because if we're not correctly identifying
what prompts violence of the sort thatCharlie Kirk's death illustrated,
then we're not going to get anywhereclose to solving the problem.
And as John pointed out, the case of LuigiMandioni illustrates that there is now
an extremely toxic strainof political violence,
(23:10):
the celebration of political violenceon the far left in the United States.
And we need to clearlyidentify that reality.
It's a sad state of affairs whensomebody who at least used to have
a large TV audience cancompletely misinform the public.
And the journalist who has consistentlyargued that there is a problem of this
(23:33):
sort, Andy Ngo, has himself had toendure violence and intimidation.
And I just wanna single outAndy's worth work here,
because if anybody hada kind of good read and
an insightful read on the motivationsbehind Charlie Kirk's death, it was.
And, you know, I think that's worthsaying at a time when people like
(23:55):
Jimmy Kimmel are simplymisrepresenting what's happening.
Happening.
>> Bill Whalen (24:00):
So John Cochrane, how long before we get a grumpy columnist column on
the need to abolishthe Federal Communications Commission?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (24:05):
[LAUGH] >> Bill Whalen
does->> John H. Cochrane: It seemed to me too.
>> Bill Whalen (24:08):
It is a vestige of the New Deal, it's over 90 years old.
>> John H. Cochrane (24:11):
So yeah, I mean, the sad thing is there's so
much hypocrisy all around.
Remember cancel culture andthe Twitter files and so forth.
I wish the Democrats had a leg to stand onwith their sudden discovery of the wonders
of the First Amendment.
We do have to distinguishbetween private and government.
Government shutting you up isthe violation of First Amendment.
(24:33):
Unpleasant as it is, private peoplefiring you for it is not illegal.
Yeah, the problem is whenthe government has a power,
it's going to use it, andthe government is political.
And the FCC does regulate content and
has since 1934.
(24:53):
And it's not just about explicitlysaying you may not say X.
They also get to approve your mergers.
And this is merger approval,any intellectual basis of antitrust has
gone out long ago,you need to curry favor.
So merely, hm, we're unhappy,is going to be very difficult, and
that's why it's not justexplicit regulation.
(25:15):
It's this kind of political cronyism,
political favoritism thatis going through Russia.
What's the answer,abolish the FCC, abolish the FDC.
If the government has this power,the government is going to use it.
And more broadly, we are in an era,unfortunately, escalating tit for tat.
I bring brass knuckles to a bar andnext time you bring a knife and
(25:38):
next time I bring a gun.
And that's the way it'sgoing in many areas.
The use of the Department of Justice forlawfare, for example,
I hoped we would stop that, but we're not.
So at what point do wesay enough is enough?
I wanna go back to a limited governmentthat doesn't do this kind of thing,
rather than, that's handy, I'll takethat and use it my way next time.
(25:59):
Cuz believe me, President Newsom isgoing to look at these precedents and
say, that's handy.
>> Bill Whalen (26:06):
There's one other angle here, gentlemen, and that is institutional
decline/institutional drift,and H.R., here I turn to you.
You guys all are warriors in this field,you write for alternative media.
And Niall has taken upon himself to createa university in Texas as an alternative
to academic bias.
But late-night television, in America,at least, has fallen prey to this.
And Niall,I think one of the problems America has,
(26:27):
it doesn't have a Graham Norton show.
There is no simple entertainment showwhere people sit on a red couch and
just make light of things.
Late night's become much too political.
But H.R., you see this, andit's both the audience on late night,
Niall mentioned declining audiences.
Kimmel's show gets about 100 to 200,000people in the 18 to 47 demographic,
is advertising.
We get more people watching this showthan he does on national television, so
(26:49):
that tells you about that.
But it also has drifted to the left,H.R., and you know this personally.
You wanna tell us about that?
>> H.R. McMaster (26:55):
Yeah, well, there is kind of an orthodoxy now that has
gripped even comedians, right, whoshould be sort of more insulated to it.
And when my book At War with Ourselvescame out, my publicist said,
hey, the Stephen Colbertshow said you could come on.
But if you come on,you have to condemn President Trump and
(27:17):
recommend that nobody vote for him.
And I said, well, I'm not gonna do that,so that's an easy choice.
But I think that,I don't know if it was just a producer or
if it was Stephen Colbert directly, but
there has been this orthodoxy thathas gripped late-night television.
So many of these monologues,honestly, the few that I do see,
(27:38):
they're just like diatribes.
They're not funny, which might be whykinda the ratings are going down.
So yeah, I worry about that, butthen I also worry about the government.
We don't want the Trump administrationto crack down on media, right?
The correction to this is bad ratings,right?
It's sort of people saying, enough ofthat, and choosing to go to other media,
(28:02):
like what Bari Weiss did, forexample, with The Free Press.
And anyway,I think the market should correct for
it rather than the US government.
>> John H. Cochrane (28:11):
Competition is the salve for all wounds.
Remember, the FCC was put into place toregulate radio [LAUGH] when there was two
national networks, andthen there was three national TV networks.
There's plenty of room forcompetition now.
We do not need the government to managethe monopoly on late-night TV show.
And there's always the option ofturn the darn thing off [LAUGH].
>> Bill Whalen (28:33):
All right, next, a question for the three of you.
Do you agree that Charlie Kirk's deathis a watershed moment, and if so,
what comes next?
And if Jimmy Kimmel is outright canceled,his contract is up any way in May, but
if ABC decides between now andMay to cancel the show,
is that likewise a watershed moment?
H.R., you wanna go first?
>> H.R. McMaster (28:51):
It's not unprecedented, right?
If you look at really far left violence,this kind of brand of violence,
how about the 70s?
How about the Red Brigades, seemingly,these liberation army, for example?
I mean, so many examples ofthis kinda violence in the 70s.
But hey, I think people should payattention to what Governor Spencer Cox
(29:11):
said, the governor of Utah.
That guy's fantastic, I think,
he did describe it as a watershedmoment where we face a choice.
Do we go down the path, as John said,of coming to the bar fight,
bumping up with the next weapon?
Or do we decide, okay,let's be civil to each other,
let's make clear that this kind ofviolence is intolerable, horrific.
(29:35):
But then, also, recognize that wheneverwe engage in this kind of vitriolic
discourse and attack each other from adhominem perspectives instead of really
exploring the issues and how we can worktogether, then we're contributing to
an environment that eventually canlead to more of this violence.
So I just recommend,pay attention to the governor of Utah.
>> Bill Whalen (29:58):
John?
>> John H. Cochrane (29:59):
I wish it were a watershed moment because I wish this
wonderful young man's life could attainmore mythic status, but I don't think so.
The watershed moment comes when we stopsaying, I'm gonna take those huge federal
powers and use them my way andvilify the opposition.
And we say, no,that's not the way we wanna go.
(30:21):
As we've discussed,
it has been nice to see the conversationtilt in that direction, but
I don't think this particular one isgoing to be the one that changes it.
>> Bill Whalen (30:32):
Niall?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (30:33):
Charlie founded Turning Point USA.
And of course, the kinda turningpoint that he had in mind was
not one that would call for his own death.
I just fervently hope that whateverpeople's political persuasion,
I don't care how far to the left you are,or, for that matter,
(30:55):
how far they're right, you shouldunderstand the point of Charlie Kirk.
The reason he was on a college campuswas that he believed in reasoned debate.
He was trying almost as a sorta one-mancrusader to take on a lot of the radical
progressive ideology on collegecampuses and just argue it out.
(31:18):
And he died with a microphone in his hand.
The point about Charlie Kirk'slife was speech, free speech.
And the best turning point that couldpossibly commemorate all he achieved
is that everyone right across thepolitical spectrum gets the message that
the United States of America is about freespeech, civil discourse, not civil war.
(31:44):
That, I hope,is the turning point we've reached.
>> John H. Cochrane (31:46):
Could I add, too,
[COUGH] we also needto stop catastrophism.
What justifies these kinds ofextreme feelings is the rhetoric of
a catastrophe's coming.
This election is the endof democracy Democracy.
Trump is the new Hitler,Biden is the new Stalin.
The planet is going to burnin two years unless we all,
(32:09):
you know, de industrializethis kind of catastrophism.
If you believe that,well then of course it does.
That would justify the end of democracy,would justify political violence.
We had a lot of political violencein 1860 in, in, in the US well,
there was a catastrophe at hand.
So not just be respectful of each otherbut notch down the rhetoric a little.
(32:34):
Let's be realistic about what we areactually arguing about and what we're not.
>> Bill Whalen (32:39):
That's well put, I would add for our audience,
please go onto social media, go to X, andgo to the University Austin's feed, and
there you'll find a speech thatNiall gave earlier this week.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (32:48):
Charlie Kirk, who dedicated his life to debate and
who died with a mic,not a knife in his hand.
One of these things, Charlie personified,
I think,that innate American love of liberty.
(33:09):
Ladies and gentlemen,we at UATX stand with
Charlie in the sense that we stand for
liberty and we stand for truth.
>> Bill Whalen (33:23):
I think it's on Constitution Day.
But Niall just brilliantly takes theConstitution, the founder of the republic
universities, Charlie Cook andjust brilliantly melts it all together.
So do yourself a favor andwatch that, listen to it,
read it if you have a chance.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (33:36):
Thanks, Bill.
>> Bill Whalen (33:37):
You're welcome.
Cuz it's a short show, gentlemen, we'renot gonna do a full blown lightning round.
We're just gonna end with one topic and
that is remembering the late RobertRedford who passed away at the age of 89.
A true movie star, we would agree,unlike today's leading actors and
actresses don't seem to havethat same kind of aura.
>> Speaker 7 (33:52):
What's the matter with you?
>> Speaker 8 (33:53):
I can't swim.
>> Bill Whalen (33:55):
Question for the three of you gentlemen.
Do you have a favorite Redford movie?
I have one.
Since I toil in California andpolitics here at Hoover,
naturally I gravitate to the candidate,which is a 1972 movie starring Redford.
He plays a gentleman named Bill McKay whois an underdog Democratic Senate candidate
in California.
That's how old this movie is, by the way.
Underdog Democrats in California.
(34:16):
But it's just a timeless movie becauseit shows that you start running for
office with ideals and vision and then youquickly get in the business of getting
elected, which becomes justa very cynical empty exercise and
has one of the greatendings in movie history.
Now what do we do?
So, HR I turn to you fora favorite Redford movie and
I'M guessing it's goingto be a bridge too far.
>> H.R. McMaster (34:35):
Yeah. Okay,
I'll just be superpredictable because you know,
he had a great character in that movie.
I forget his name, but he was a major.
>> Bill Whalen (34:42):
Major Julian Cook.
>> H.R. McMaster (34:44):
Okay, Major Julian cook.
In the 82nd he gets like thisimpossible mission, right?
Turns out that the Germans are defendingboth sides of the bridge and
he has to do assault across the river,you know, in, in an RB15,
you know, you know, inflatable boatusing their rifles to get across.
And he's just so stoic about.
(35:04):
He knows he's getting justa real tough mission.
But he's just, okay,all right, bring it on.
So yeah, that's my favorite [LAUGH].
>> Bill Whalen (35:12):
Great backstory of that movie.
The great Sean.
It's an incredible cast.
Look it up.
Movies aren't made like this anymore.
The great Sean Connery is in it.
And when Connery heard what making,
Connery walked off the setto add more money.
So good for Sir Sean.
Robert Redford played, he playedparatroopers, he played politicians,
he played spies, he, he played cowboys.
(35:33):
He never played an economist.
I guess it was Russell Crowe did.
But do you have a favorite Redford movie?
>> John H. Cochrane (35:39):
The problem is I like a lot of them.
I mean The Sting you haven't mentioned.
I thought that was Chicago.
That had some Chicago in it andI love the movie.
Redford's problem was hewas too good looking.
It's just distracting.
Not something any of us have anyexperience with, but you know,
it's just distracting looking atthe guy you want to see, you know,
evaluate someone as an actor.
(35:59):
Look at Paul Giamatti.
Now there's a guy you really see hisacting ability, you know, so, so too bad,
Paul, you were so good looking, it'shard to tell what a good actor you were.
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (36:10):
All The President's Men is the one that one can't really get
away from because it's inspireda generation of journalists not
only to believe that theycould topple president just by
doorsteping people untilthey nail the story, but
also to believe that they could beas good looking as Robert Redford,
(36:33):
which no journalist has ever been orwill ever be.
>> Bill Whalen (36:37):
Yeah, good point.
By the way, quick counterfactual, Niall.
If Robert F Kennedy is the president in1970s and it's his aides who are burglars,
do you think Ben Bradley goesforward with investigating Kennedy?
>> Sir Niall Ferguson (36:49):
No. And I think that's part of the key
to understanding Watergate,that Watergate happens.
Because stuff that the Kennedys andLyndon Johnson had kind of
routinely done when it was done byNixon became a fantastic way for
the New York Times,the Department of justice,
(37:09):
the Kennedy Democrats,all the people who hated Nixon to get him.
And that was the thing that always rankledwith Nixon as well as with the people who
did time for Watergate.
So in that counterfactual,it does seem much less plausible.
What would National Reviewhave brought down the Kennedy,
A Bobby Kennedy presidency over, overa break in to the Republican headquarters.
(37:35):
I don't think,I don't think Buckley was that powerful.
But I agree with John,it was always a distraction.
And that's why I quite likeall the President's Men.
Because you've got Dustin Hoffman wholooks like a real journalist opposite
this Adonis like figure who's sortof pretending to be a journalist and
that sort of.
I thought that worked.
(37:55):
It's the way the two play off oneanother that's so good in that film.
>> Bill Whalen (38:01):
Okay, well gentlemen, we leave it there.
Great conversation, good to see you.
I'm glad your travels went well and
we'll be back a new episode very soon,early October I believe.
On behalf of my colleagues, Sir NiallFerguson, HR McMaster, John Cochran,
all of us here at the Hoover Institution,we hope you enjoyed today's abbreviate.
If you want to follow more about Niall,John, and H.R., sign up for
the Hoover Daily Report.
(38:22):
Also, they all write, they Substack,they do columns of the Free Press, and
so forth.
You will not lack material for them.
Definitely check them out.
And that's it forthis episode until next time.
Take care.
Thanks for watching.
>> Speaker 9 (38:33):
Okay, we gotta get out there.
See, I told you they'd be.
>> Speaker 10 (38:38):
Marvin, what do we do now?
>> Speaker 9 (38:41):
Wait a minute.
What?
>> Speaker 11 (38:44):
Move back just a little bit.
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