We Win, They Lose, With Matthew Kroenig

Ronald Reagan: Now, let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace, and you can have it in the next second, surrender. Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this. But every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement.

And this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face, that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender.

Bill Whalen: It's Tuesday, August 6, 2024, and welcome back to GoodFellows, a Hoover Institution Broadcast examining social, economic, political, and geopolitical concerns.

I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a Hoover distinguished policy fellow. I'll be your moderator today, joined by two of the three stars of our show, our GoodFellows, as we like to call them. In the house today, we have the economist John Cochrane and former presidential national security advisor HR McMaster.

They're both Hoover senior fellows. Not joining us today, we think he's somewhere on the high seas, maybe singing sea shanties or HMS Pinafore is the historian Niall Ferguson. But we'll have Niall back on our next show in September, and I'll tell you more about that at the end of the show.

Joining us today to talk about world politics, making his GoodFellows debut, is Matthew Kroenig. Mister Kroenig is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. His research focuses on US national security strategy, strategic competition with China and Russia, and strategic deterrence and weapons non-proliferation.

Matthew Kroenig is here to discuss his latest book. It's titled We Win They Lose, Republican Foreign Policy & the New Cold War. The book's title comes from a quote by Ronald Reagan regarding his Soviet Cold War policy, the author arguing that this should be the goal for America and its allies and partners in the new struggle with China.

Matt, welcome to GoodFellows.

Matthew Kroenig: Thanks, it's an honor to be here.

Bill Whalen: Thank you. We hope you feel the way after we're done with you. Let's get into your book. But first, let's talk about some breaking news around the world. Earlier today, Israel Defense forces, the IDF, announced that it carried out an airstrike in southern Lebanon, reportedly killing four Hezbollah operatives.

That comes one day after Hezbollah reportedly launched a rocket and drone attack in northern Israel. And so it goes in that corner of the world, the two sides exchanging daily strikes for ten months now, this week being the ten-month anniversary of Hamas attack on Israel. Matt, we know that Israel is on a defense footing right now, expecting an attack from Israel.

I want you to pull out your crystal ball and tell us exactly how this goes. Is Iran going to attack Israel? Is Israel going to do something proactively against Iran? Does Hezbollah fire first? Does Israel fire first at Hezbollah? Do we see Hezbollah and Iran tagging up on Israel or vice versa?

Or am I missing something here? Is there an exit ramp that we're all overlooking?

Matthew Kroenig: Yeah, well, my fear is that we can expect a big attack from Iran against Israel. And if you think back to the last round of exchanges, several months ago, Iran launched this unprecedented attack against Israel, hundreds of drones and missiles.

Fortunately, the United States and its allies were able to shoot and Israel were able to shoot almost all of them down. But then the Biden administration restrained Israel from responding, and I think that was a mistake. And I think the lesson that Iran might take from this is that now it can get away with large scale attacks on Israel without a response.

And so that's my fear. Well, we'll see if I'm right. And then I think the solution is to recognize that Iran is the head of the snake behind all of this. We have to end the fiction that Hezbollah somehow acting on its own and to make that clear in our policy that the United States and Israel will hold Iran responsible for these Hezbollah and other attacks on Israel.

And I think essentially we have a deterrence failure problem that needs to be addressed.

Bill Whalen: H.R.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, hey, Matt, I'd like to just expound on that a little bit. Hey, first of all, I'm a huge fan of the book We Win, They Lose, as well as your previous book on The Return of Great Power Competition.

So congratulations on it. And I think it deserves reading by all Americans because I think you lay out the importance of really, Reagan has peace through strength. But also how us engagement with these difficult challenges abroad can help prevent them from growing even more dangerous and prevent us from having to deal with them at an exorbitant cost once they reach our shores.

So great job on that. I'd just like to ask you about how do you view the Biden administration policy overall towards Iran and the Middle East? Maybe before and then after October 7? And what is the degree to which those policies, which I think we agree were wrong-headed, have contributed to what I think all of us recognize is almost certainly to be a conflict that escalates, to use the word that they like to use when they're talking about their continuous efforts to de-escalate.

Matthew Kroenig: Well, thanks a lot, General McMaster, and thanks for mentioning the book, which is available on Amazon. I think, and I have a chapter on Middle East policy in the book, but I think you and the Trump administration had it right. And traditionally, US strategy in the Middle East has been to support Israel, support other traditional partners like the Gulf states, and to organize the region against Iran and terrorist groups.

And I think, unfortunately, Middle East strategy has become more partisan. And I think the Democrats and the Biden administration have had a different idea, that they can negotiate with Iran, that maybe our traditional allies are part of the problem, calling Saudi Arabia pariah state. And I think that hasn't worked.

I think that the Trump administration approach worked better. And fortunately, right after October 7, I think Biden had a moment of moral clarity. He said that he would support Israel, had Israel's back, and that was the policy early on and then has changed over time. I think because of criticism from the progressive left and others.

He's trying to have it both ways, and it's not satisfying anyone. And I think it is a failing policy. And so what I advocate for in the book is a return to something like what you did in the Trump administration of working with traditional allies to contain Iran.

But I'd love your view on the issue as well.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I just think overall, it goes to the tone of your book. I think that this idea of escalation management, we've talked about this quite a bit on GoodFellows, John. I think what that does is it gives the Iranians license to escalate on their own terms with impunity because I think they are willing to pursue their objectives down to the last Arab, down to the last Palestinian because we act like we don't know what the return address is.

And, John, I know you've got some strong thoughts on this, and as we see this conflict continue to evolve. Well, what questions do you have for Matt, or what's on your mind?

John H. Cochrane: Yeah, I got, so let me ask questions. I get to play every man here and ask the idiot question.

One thing I noticed is that what we seem to be doing, to some extent, Israel too. Well, Israel taking out commanders of Hamas, that's actually a military thing that helps. There is a tendency to, you do something, and then I show you I'm tough. It's like the pushing stage of a bar fight as opposed to the actual fighting stage of a bar fight.

And I'm curious at what point you stop trying to respond to show how tough you are and instead do something that has a military advantage. I think of the Houthis. Instead of shooting down missiles, they come in. Why don't we shoot down the rocket launchers or the supply of rockets instead of treating those as inviolate and then try to shoot them as they come in, or have a really stern denunciation when they do stuff?

And I'm just curious, is that not militarily feasible? Why are we not actually to fight the war? And the larger question? Yes, we seem to think that the answer is to deescalate, which means to appease and that there's something to negotiate about. About whereas when the other side says, well, are you going to commit suicide tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, that's what we want to know.

But when do we apply, We Win They Lose? I mean, what is the end game with Iran? The only end game I can see is regime change, which most of the people inside Iran would love dearly to have happen. They're not particularly fond of this business either. Why do we pretend we're here to negotiate with them?

And I'll stop there for the moment, but when we got to add the nuke question into this, and that's the larger question with our strategic policy.

Matthew Kroenig: I think HR, you're gonna respond?

H.R. McMaster: No, I was gonna ask you, Matt, to respond. I mean, I think part of the reason for John's, for our behavior this way and the belief that Iran's gonna change his behavior is a myth that the Iranians have deliberately created here and fostered in the United States.

That there's this competition within Iran between the Republicans and the revolutionaries. But, hey, that competition is over, the revolutionaries won. But, Matt, what's your view on that?

John H. Cochrane: Isn't it the regime versus the people? I didn't think in the regime there was much competition.

H.R. McMaster: Well, I mean, what they try to do is get the United States to welcome them back into the international order, alleviate sanctions, just not enforce sanctions, make other concessions.

Under the belief that doing so reinforces kind of the Republicans within the Iranian government. And I think this has been a deliberate sort of information operation that they've been running on us through certain agents and useful idiots who they've cultivated in academia and the think tanks, and across the western world, but especially in the United States.

But, Matt, I know there are other dimensions of this as well. What are your thoughts on John's question? Why the heck don't we realize that a tougher approach in favor of the Iranian people and against the theocratic dictatorship is really what's called for?

Matthew Kroenig: Yes, well, I think we agree that this constant search for the moderates within the Iranian regime has led to a lot of failures in US policy toward Iran.

And even this last presidential election the western media was talking about how the successful candidate is a moderate. And there really are no moderates in the Iranian regime. And, John, I think you're absolutely right, we should be shooting the archers, not the arrows, in the region, when it comes to the Houthis and others.

But I think there's essentially two different kind of theories about what's driving the conflict in the region. And I think the Biden administration has this idea of accidental escalation, that we're gonna do something that's gonna provoke Iran. They're gonna have to retaliate, Israel's gonna retaliate, it's gonna spiral out of control.

Therefore, we need to manage the escalation and respond, but not too hard. And I have a different theory of what's driving the conflict. I think it's a deterrence failure that Iran has learned that it can get away with this aggression without suffering serious consequences. And so I think the way to stop it is to communicate very clearly to Tehran that if they cross certain lines, including proxy attacks on Israel or international shipping, that there will be severe consequences.

That could be things like sinking their navy or killing Soleimani, something that coming back to the book that Reagan and Trump were willing to do and more of a peace through strength approach. But I think the Biden administration has been unwilling to do it. And then, John, ultimately, I do think that the problem, the only way to solve this long-term is with a different government in Iran that respects the human rights of its people, that's more cooperative internationally.

And I do think this regime is weak, but we're gonna have to deal with challenges in the near term, probably before that happens. Including the nuclear program, which Secretary Blinken says now is one to two weeks breakout time till game over. So serious challenges indeed.

H.R. McMaster: Matt, can I ask you a more general question?

Cuz John and I have been engaged with these discussions with Niall about kind of an internationalist approach to foreign policy versus kind of the retrenchers these days. Especially those in the Republican Party and with the narrow Republican majority in the House, they've been super empowered in many ways.

And there are reasons why a lot of Americans are skeptical about our ability to run an effective foreign policy and have an approach of international engagement. What is your argument? What is your argument in the book? And then what do you say to the retrenchers in the Republican Party?

And those who are arguing for us disengagement from some of these complex competitions, like maybe support for Ukraine, for example, or those who have viewed the Middle east mainly as just a mess to be avoided. What is the argument for an international approach to foreign policy, for the Republican Party in particular?

Matthew Kroenig: Yes, well, I do have a section on this in the book, and I think even if you have an America first foreign policy and your purpose is to look after the interest of the American people. We live in an interconnected world and the peace and prosperity and freedom of the American people directly depends on whether you have peace and stability, especially in the three primary theaters of Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

And so we went to war twice in the past 100 years to restore peace to Europe. And so maintaining peace and stability there is important, Europe is still our number one trading partner. Middle East, we saw in 911 that not dealing with threats in the Middle East can come and have direct consequences for the United States.

Even though the United States is more energy independent than it used to be, energy is a global market. So disruptions to energy supplies in the Middle East hurts the pocketbooks of Americans sitting at the kitchen table in Ohio and everywhere else. And these adversaries, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, are increasingly working together.

They don't see these theaters as separate, they see them as interconnected. They're messing around in our democracy with disinformation and other things. And so I think being engaged and working with our allies to counter these revisionist autocracies is not some globalist crusade. It's about making the average person in Missouri, where I grew up, safer, richer, and freer.

John H. Cochrane: Let me channel the JD Vance's of the world. I believe you, and I think most of us believe you as a matter of desirability. But you look at how Iraq turned out, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, our retreat in Ukraine. They look and say, well, you're sending my kids off, and-

H.R. McMaster: Afghanistan, John, right, Afghanistan.

John H. Cochrane: Sorry, I left out the big one, Afghanistan. How many wars are you gonna lose? So I think there's a distrust of the competence of our foreign policy establishment to see anything through, rather than wouldn't it be nice if the US became strong and determined and able to see things through and get things done.

Matthew Kroenig: Yeah, so I'm working on a new book now, actually called force for how American power makes the world safer, richer, and freer. So I think that you're right, John, a lot of people focus on the mistakes in US foreign policy, and there have been mistakes. But they're selecting on the dependent variable, to use a social science term.

They're not looking at the full range of US foreign policy actions and the results. And if you look at just the empirical data from 1945 to the present, the world is a lot safer, richer, and freer than it was before the dawn of the American era, Zero Great Power Wars in 70 years.

Average standard of living in the United States and globally five times today what it was in 1945. We often forget in 1945, there were only about a dozen democracies in the world. Today, there are nearly 100 democratic countries in the world, and it's a direct result of US leadership in the world in creating alliances.

And establishing peace in Europe and Asia, a remarkable accomplishment. 2500 years of wars in Europe came to an end because of NATO and US engagement there. United States advocating for free markets globally that has helped to make the world richer. And then I think the United States also promoting its values has made the world and ultimately the American people freer.

So, yes, I think we've made mistakes in Iraq and elsewhere, but I think the overall record is that us engagement has been good for the world and good for the American people.

Bill Whalen: Matt, let's look at another country and ask the question of what would Reagan do and what you call the Trump Reagan fusion and foreign policy.

That would be Venezuela. Now, the United States has recognized the opposition candidate as the winner of that election, but our government is not doing much in the way of really kind of making a lot of noise on this matter. You contrast that to the Reagan years where he went into Grenada, the Bush years where we took out Noriega.

There is somebody who's been very vocal about the results, and that is John's friend Javier Malay at Argentina, who has been very loudly denouncing the treatment of the opposition. What is the card to play in Venezuela? What should we be doing here?

Matthew Kroenig: Yeah, I don't think that we have a lot of great options, but I think we should at least be clear about what we're trying to achieve.

But I think we do want a better government in Venezuela for a variety of reasons, because it's becoming a foothold for Russia and China in our own backyard. And so the Chinese, for example, have set up a ground satellite station there that probably can be used to spy on the United States, the Russians providing arms and military advisors.

And so I think we don't want that kind of adversarial influence in our own region. And so working to push Maduro out and get a better government in, I think, would advance US interests. How exactly to do that? I don't have great ideas and we cover a lot of ground in the book, but we don't have a Latin America chapter.

So I don't know, maybe HR John have the solution to, to that one.

H.R. McMaster: Well, one of my dear friends, Leopoldo Lopez, who's just a fantastic guy who runs the world Liberty Congress now and was an opposition politician. And a fantastic mayor of Caracas until he was imprisoned by Maduro and then escaped after seven years of imprisonment.

It's just a dramatic, fantastic story, he believes that we have to do everything we can to support the opposition at this stage. He laments the fact that the Biden administration lifted the sanctions on Venezuela to try to incentivize a return to the constitution, a return to representative government that has utterly failed now.

So I think now it's time to impose costs on the regime as well as I think go after some of these relationships. You mentioned, the Chinese and the Russians to try to maybe insulate or disrupt their support for this oppressive regime, which is now imprisoning and killing and wounding hundreds of Venezuelans.

And you're right, it's not getting much attention, John, and then also the Cubans as well, who are actually quite weak now. I mean, this is something that also hasn't been covered. There have been more Cuban refugees fleeing the disaster that is Cuba than really at any time in recent memory as well.

So again, these authoritarian regimes, they look really strong sometimes from the outside. And Maduro with his uniform, hey, theyre actually quite brittle. So I think we should be doing everything we can to support the Venezuelan people in this case and also to support the Cuban people, the Nicaraguan people, for example, as well.

So the pink wave that has hit, I think the hemisphere is gonna reverse because of these failed models. I don`t know how Petro can advocate this, is the leader of Colombia for this move to the left when he sees the utter failure, obviously, of Venezuela. And John, I mean, I don't know what you think, what seems to be an apparent success in Argentina, right?

Is that what we're seeing is, and Melee has a long way to go, but is it working in Argentina?

John H. Cochrane: You haven't been reading your New York Times lately, Venezuela is an example of brutal capitalism, which may.

H.R. McMaster: No, that was crazy, I saw that piece, that was crazy.

John H. Cochrane: It explains a lot of what Washington thinks and why they willing to go along with people. Malay is so far, inflation is way, way down. And by removing rent controls in Buenos Aires, there are now apartments to rent and rents went down 20% when they removed the rent controls.

Something that San Francisco might wanna learn, a lot of interesting stuff going on. I'd like to pivot if I can, Bill, will you let me to nuclear questions cuz.

Bill Whalen: Right ahead.

John H. Cochrane: It's something you're an expert on here, but this is something, as an economist, I think, about game theory, nuclear and so forth.

We had something that we sort of understood with us versus the Russians, massive nuclear exchanges and deterrence, but now the situation is much different. So what I see is the Biden doctrine, let's call it in Ukraine, which basically goes, if you rattle your nukes, you can grab anything you want, and we won't do anything about it.

We will certainly not allow even Ukraine to do conventional attacks on supply lines in Russia. You get what you want if you rattle your nukes, certainly with Iran, Iran is going to have nukes soon. And is the Biden doctrine going to extend to Iran? So in the case of where the threat is not a massive exchange, this is a new thing.

But the threat is one tactical nuclear weapon might go off, what is our credible plan? But you need in game theory to deter, you need a credible plan b that you can and will actually use. The only one I can think of is a massive conventional response to a small nuclear attack, because that has to be one that you can do and one that you will do.

We are not gonna murder hundred million Russians over one tactical nuclear weapon likewise the Iranians. Is it suddenly hands off once they get a nuclear weapon and we keep talking about China and how we're gonna go in and go take Taiwan back. I cannot believe that if we're not gonna let Ukraine, Ukraine use weapons in Russia cuz Russia has some nukes, that we are gonna go attack Taiwan, given that China has God knows how many nukes.

So help us out on where is nuclear deterrence, nuclear strategy in this new world that isn't just massive exchange with Russia. But either small states with one or two weapons, a state that can threaten a tactical nuclear weapon, and no clearly stated plan. I mean, the plan b, I think, for Iran has to be, you do anything and we will replay Gulf war one.

You sit off any nuclear weapon, it's a conventional invasion and regime change. That's possible, it's credible if you wanna do it. But what else is the credible response that puts this back in the bottle? Sorry for the lecture, you're the expert, and this is something on my mind.

Matthew Kroenig: No, great, you set it up perfectly. And I think the nuclear threat environment we face in some ways is worse than in the Cold War, because in the Cold War, we had a kind of one nuclear peer adversary. And now with, with China's massive nuclear buildup, for the first time, we have to deal with two near peer nuclear adversaries.

And in fact, I was appointed by Congress to a congressional commission, a strategic posture commission, to study this issue. And we delivered our report to Congress in October. It was bad timing, it came out October 13 or something. And so all the attention was on the attacks of October 7 but I guess I'd say a few things.

One, I think we need to relearn some of the things that we forgot during the Cold War. Because during the Cold War, it wasn't just the adversaries that rattled. The nuclear saber we did as well, and I direct the Scowcroft center. And so the 1973 Arab Israeli crisis, the Soviet Union was thinking about intervening militarily in the crisis.

United States put its nuclear weapons on high alert, Brent Scowcroft and Henry Kissinger made a number of public statements that if the Soviet Union were to intervene, the consequences would be incalculable, and the Soviet Union decided not to intervene. So going to Ukraine first, imagine in February 2022, if Biden, instead of saying a minor incursion, might be okay, if he put nuclear weapons on high alert and said Russia would never think of invading Ukraine, the consequences would be incalculable.

I don't know I think Putin might have been deterred we might have avoided this conflict.

John H. Cochrane: Can you stop you right there? Let me just stop here because I teed up too many, but let's think about Ukraine. But it's not credible that the US is gonna launch a nuclear attack on Russia if Russia invades Ukraine, what is credible is that the US will allow NATO and HR and his tank buddies to roll Russia back conventionally and call the bluff.

No, you are not gonna launch nuclear weapons in response to a conventional defense of Ukraine, which we could do in a week. Isn't that the more credible deterrence for Russia in Ukraine?

Matthew Kroenig: Well, I think I ultimately agree, but let me go ahead and fight the premise anyway.

What was it really credible that Ford would have, or in the 1970s that we would have launched a nuclear war with the Soviet Union if they sent forces into Egypt? Probably not but the consequences are high enough that if the Soviets think there's even a little bit of a chance, they might rethink it and so I think that's what Putin's doing to us, essentially.

Is he really going to launch a nuclear war? Maybe not, but we think the risk is high enough and the consequences great enough, that Biden's going to great lengths to avoid it. So I think we should relearn some of those lost lessons of deterrence. But the United States and NATO have thought through, cuz Russia has this kind of scary nuclear doctrine, escalate to de escalate, pop off a nuke or 2 or 12 to get NATO to back down.

And so if it happened in a NATO country, say Russia invaded Estonia, I think we do have a pretty good strategy, which is to essentially have flexible options. And so it's not suicide or surrender that we could retaliate with limited nuclear options of our own and so Putin doesn't win.

He just gets into a limited nuclear war with the United States, which is in his interest and thanks to HR and the Trump administration for developing two new low yield nuclear weapons, essentially deal with this problem. What makes Ukraine harder is it's not a NATO ally and Biden has essentially said that he's not gonna get involved at all.

And so it is really incredible then that if Putin used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, that suddenly Biden would use nuclear weapons. So I do think that if Russia were to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, you're right, that the way to deter that and respond if deterrence fails would be for a conventional action that imposes a cost on Russia sinking the Black Sea fleet or something like that.

But, HR, I see you nodding, how are you?

H.R. McMaster: No, I just think in general terms that you shouldn't take things off the table, right? You shouldn't rule out courses of action and thats really what the Biden administration has done is said here are all the things were not going to do.

And, of course, that removes ambiguity for Putin and I think in many ways like green lighted the invasion of Ukraine. John, on your suggestion that we could do with conventional forces, I'll tell you the army is not big enough anymore. I mean, it's a much smaller army it's getting smaller.

And also it's important to look at the difference in scale between Iraq and Iran, not only in terms of geographic area and complexity, but also based on population. So it's a much tougher task to invade, for example, Iran. And I think, obviously, the change in the nature of the regime there has got to come from the Iranian people ultimately.

But you can set conditions for that and you can place obviously, a lot of assets of value to Iran at risk. And you can weaken the regime through more limited military operations, not just strikes, but also maybe some raids and so forth or operations along certain areas, like Natanz, for example, if you want to dismantle the nuclear capabilities.

So, I mean, I think all of these options should be on the table for employing all elements of national power to remove what I think the Israelis recognize through the beginning doctrine is an unacceptable risk. I mean, how do you allow a country that has vowed to destroy you and to destroy you with the most destructive weapons on earth to get those most destructive weapons?

So, John, I think the, Matt, I'd love to know what both of you think about this. I think Israel's going to act, I would say, maybe even within the year against Iran's nuclear capabilities. I think after they deal with Hezbollah and Southern Lebanon, which is next up, I think that they're already planning and may have already green lighted and are developing the plans and refining the plans and the capabilities to strike at Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities.

And obviously to do everything between now and then short of that, they can do it and they've demonstrated a significant capability with the Haniyeh assassination, for example. So, Matt, what are your thoughts on all this about what happens next in terms of the threat that you've highlighted here, which is Iran with a nuclear weapon?

Matthew Kroenig: Yeah, well, John posited that they'll get nuclear weapons soon, and I fear that he's right, but I'm not willing to acquiesce to that yet and I do think that we have a military option. Several presidents have said that military options on the table and that a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable.

And years ago, people would say, well, the United States or Israel shouldn't take military action because Israel would respond. They'd ask Hezbollah and Hamas to attack that the region would be in crisis. Well, that argument doesn't really work anymore the region's already in crisis and it seems like, I mean, if I were in a position like you had before HR, I'd say, mister president, this may be an opportunity.

If Iran hits Israel, this is an invitation for us to destroy the nuclear facilities and solve what's really the major challenge because this is bad enough, but imagine if Iran had nuclear weapons, this would be much, much worse.

H.R. McMaster: I think the opportunity was in April, Matt, with the massive 500 or so projectiles headed in Iran, instead of saying take the win, I think you're right.

That was a tremendous opportunity to significantly degrade Iran's capabilities.

Bill Whalen: John, do you feel better now.

John H. Cochrane: Direct attacks on Israel by missile are not acceptable from conventional or nuclear and we've kind of said, no, that's fine, so long as you can shoot them down.

Bill Whalen: Matt, can I ask one more question from your book you talk about, you wrote an article for foreign policy, actually, you talked about the Trump Reagan Foreign Policy unifying Republicans.

My question, if there is a Trump-Vance Administration a year from now, what is their policy in terms of boots on the ground? It seems to me, Matt, that technology allows us to do a lot of killing from distance. We can target people with drones and missiles and we can drop bombs from above but there's always a thorny question of when do you put us troops in?

You argue that United Republicans are united on Foreign Policy, but it seems to me, Matt, that if you send troops into Harm's Way somewhere, people are going to scream from the raptors, no more forever wars.

Matthew Kroenig: Yes well, so I do argue that the Republican Party is more united than many people appreciate in the book.

And yes, there are real differences over Ukraine and elsewhere, but I think when it comes to the big issues, the party is still largely united and one of them, I think, is on this piece through strength idea, which was something that. Reagan talked about something that Trump also talks about.

And I think, essentially, the idea is both parts are important, peace and strength, that the United States should be so strong that no adversary dare challenge us. But if they do challenge us, I think there is a willingness to punch back hard and mention the example of Reagan sinking the Iranian navy or Trump killing Soleimani.

But I think that their piece is important, I think there is a skepticism towards of longer drawn out military activities with no clear end in sight. And Reagan withdrew marines from Lebanon. Trump was wanting to wind down the conflict in Afghanistan. And I think that's part of the reason Republicans are wary with Ukraine right now.

When Biden says that we're gonna do this as long as it takes and can't really articulate whether the goal is to win or not. I think, many Republicans are saying, well, is this just another Vietnam or Afghanistan? What are we actually doing here? So, in short, I guess I do think there is unity around this peace through strength idea.

And yes, I think there is a hesitancy to do something like Iraq or Afghanistan again but.

John H. Cochrane: Did you think that the doubtful wing of the Republican party wants to hear, we wanna win, America wins and would support a war, if the goal was we win, you lose, I love how you quoted Reagan on that.

Not, well, we're going to negotiate and we're gonna waste a whole lot of time.

H.R. McMaster: Have a responsible end, right? Whatever the hell that means, right?

John H. Cochrane: And push them back to the negotiating. So certainly, I think there's an attraction. I mean, asking for verification of people who are quite skeptical based on the history of, well, here's how it's gonna be different from this time.

The objective is win, period, that seems like it's gonna go somewhere. I am worried, though, as I listen to Republican Party and Democratic too, that a lot of what we're planning to do in this cold war is going to hurt us more than it hurts them. Big tariffs, cutting off our allies, getting out of trade agreements with our allies, tariffs against Europeans, protectionism, subsidies.

We were strong and a great manufacturing power in the 1950s because we were better than everybody else, not because we had walled fortresses to defend inefficient ways of subsidized ways of doing things. And peace through strength has to be strength and freedom and being better than everyone else.

Not protection, subsidies, retreat, and I just worry that that's gonna be a very ineffective way. We build 5 ships a year, China builds 300 ships a year. Raising the costs of making ships in the US and protective barriers is not gonna turn that around.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, that's what I'd like to maybe ask Matt, what is your assessment of John's position here.

You follow this pretty closely. You're in Washington, man, we're out here in California trying not to go soft and enjoy life, man. So what are your predictions about if it is a Trump administration, what trade policy looks like, but also what foreign policy, national security policy looks like?

What do you think is most likely to be President Trump's agenda and the agenda of those who he assembles in a new administration?

Matthew Kroenig: Yes, well, we do have a chapter in the book on trade and economic policy. So we do argue that when it comes to a country like China that's not playing by free and fair market principles, that's systematically stealing intellectual property, etc., that these more protectionist measures do make sense.

We argue that we need a hard decoupling in areas of national security and that we should push back with tariffs and other counter prevailing measures where they're cheating. But to allow, if they wanna buy soybeans, I think that's fine. If Americans wanna buy made-in-China t shirts, I think that's fine.

So I'd be interested in John's view on that does he think that even with China, we shouldn't be using tariffs? What we argue in the book is that, though, when it comes to allies, we should be expanding trade and investment there, consistent with free and fair market principles.

So as we kind of secure supply chains and move them out of China, reshoring and fringe shoring, we argue, does make sense. And in terms of Trump's threats on tariffs and NHR, you maybe have better insights into his psychology than anyone but my sense is this is the negotiating tactic he laid out in art of the deal.

He starts with the big threat, 10% across the board, tariffs on everyone, but if you don't like it, let's have a conversation and France, let's talk about your agricultural subsidies. I'm skeptical that he's actually going to put that in place and the first day, I think it's part of his negotiating strategy.

John H. Cochrane: Yeah, as much as it's my job as an economist to say tariff is always bad, even a 10% tariff if it happened and if it was net and you got credit for exports. Compared to national rent control and raising taxes on everyone to 90%, yeah, it's not the smartest thing in the world, but there's worse things

H.R. McMaster: Hey, Matt, it's a great book, I just maybe give you the last word.

So what would you sum up as the argument in the book? What is your pitch, right? What is your pitch to not just the book itself but the argument in the book for an international, reasonable approach to foreign policy that prioritizes American interests, that recognizes, hey, we're not gonna solve all the world's problems.

But if we disengage, those problems get worse and we're down to our disbenefit. What's your overall argument to counter the kind of argument of the retrenchers of the Quincy Institute and others?

Matthew Kroenig: Yeah, well, cover a lot of ground in the book, and the title is We Win, They Lose, so there is a focus on the competition with China.

We say the Biden administration approach of just saying we're gonna manage their competition with China, we don't think really makes sense, manage to what end? We think we should declare victory is the goal. But on your point about the retrenchers, I think the argument just doesn't make sense.

We've seen what an isolationist United States looks like in history, it led to two major wars in Europe. We've seen what an engaged United States looks like over the past 70 years, 70 years of peace, prosperity and freedom. And so I think pulling back would be a mistake, there's a lot of evidence for that.

And I guess one concrete recommendation, when is the last time a US president has made the case to the American people? This is why we're in Europe. This is why we're in Asia. This is why we're in the Middle east. This is how it affects you at your kitchen table in Missouri or Ohio.

And so I think there has been a failure of leadership here. And I think my number one recommendation to a new president, whether it's Harris or Trump, would be to give that speech and explain to the American people why they benefit from an engaged United States and the world.

Bill Whalen: Matt, our time is up, but you need to come back on Goodfellows because John Cochrane and Niall Ferguson and HR have been having a very gentlemanly conversation about economics and foreign policy for, well, a better part of 150 shows now. So we need you back to either participate or referee, I don't know what, but do come back.

We enjoy the conversation. The book, again, is We Win They Lose, Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War, you can get it now on Amazon. Matt, thanks for joining Goodfellas today.

H.R. McMaster: Thanks, Matt.

Matthew Kroenig: My pleasure, thanks for having me. Happy to come back anytime.

Bill Whalen: Under our B block, and that is gonna be talking about the markets and the world financial, well, is panic too strong of a word?

It certainly was a panic on Monday. Today is Tuesday. Things are a little calmer. I think it's a good opportunity to turn to the author of the Grumpy Economist to talk about what is a decidedly grumpy world economy. John-

H.R. McMaster: I'm telling you, I think he's huggy. I think it should be the huggy economist.

Bill Whalen: I love it. Okay, John, walk us through what's going on. So we saw just abject slaughter on Monday. The Nikkei went down, I think about 12%. The Nasdaq when the 100 got slaughtered. The next day things come down, I think the Nikkei goes up 10%. The Dallas bends bouncing back as well.

I'm a political hack, so I keep hearing the word recession tossed in the conversation now as it's election year. But you said something interesting before the show, that recessions, quote in your words, require a spark. Well, John Crocker, when the world markets are melting down, isn't that a spark?

John H. Cochrane: Not necessarily. Now, I wanna say here, I've been studying this for 50 years. I don't really know why markets go up or down. And I know for sure nobody else does either. I don't really know when a recession has come, but the one thing I know is nobody else does either.

So we can evaluate some stories and see if they make sense, but don't expect certainty. And if someone else tells you certainty, they're lying now. So the market meltdown, there's an old joke that markets have predicted nine out of the last five recessions and sometimes 1929, there's a market meltdown.

And that's a sign of bad things to come. Sometimes like 1987, it goes kaboom down and then comes back up again. So which is this? I don't know. There's this technical thing involving a bunch of people who were playing this carry trade with the yen and then they got in trouble and so they started selling in a hurry.

Sort of something technical happened in 87 as well, and it bounced back again. A stock market plunge by itself is really not that bad for the economy. The economy goes down 2008, it wasn't stocks that went down, it was bankruptcy. So as long as people can pay their debts, you're okay.

So I still think that the bets out, we're kinda at the top of the business cycle, that people have been waiting for a recession for like three, four years now. So one will come sooner or later. It does take a spark but as you said, the spark can be something that goes along.

Our economy is fragile, so I don't think I like 87, the stock market meltdown itself will not necessarily cause a recession. It isn't necessarily a sign of a recession to come. Some of it is, people are seeing those tech stocks were way overvalued. Come on, guys, that game's got to end.

But the whole point of stocks is the price can go down and you get up the next morning and the economy's humming along, unlike a financial crisis. So it's not yet a financial crisis on its own. So, could be bad stuff, could be one little technical bubble and we keep blowing along.

Something fragile has to happen to turn it into recession, if not a spark, something along the way, some big bankruptcy turns out all the banks have lost too much on commercial real estate. Something has to blow up furthermore, to turn this from a technical thing into a big recession.

Bill Whalen: HR, I know you're not economists, but it does kind of strike me as surprising just what a domino effect these matters have. And just, you see Japan, then Europe, and then the United States just boom, boom, boom.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously you see how interconnected we are.

And economic strength is national security. It's vital for national security. And John, I know we've talked about this a little bit, but there are more discussions I'm hearing now about the debt and service on the debt and the degree to which that's consuming federal spending and putting a squeeze on non discretionary spending, especially the military budget.

How concerned are you about that? And like, what ideas do you have about how we-

John H. Cochrane: Hugely, glad you're bringing this up. I think economic policy is way too focused on is there gonna be a recession or not? Whereas it's these longer term things that matter a whole lot more because, of course, a recession is gonna lead to all sorts of spending and stimulus.

And so that's it, we are, I think, headed to some sort of a slowdown. Is it a big one or a small one that depends on the amplifications or not? Yeah, but the key to economic policy is get out of the fed and recessions and so forth and get these one run fundamentals right.

Eventually we got a budget problem, and just raising a ton of taxes is gonna kill the economy. So that's not gonna be the answer to it. And we got to spend wisely on stuff we need, like military stuff, well bought military stuff. Let's not just throw money down rat holes there either.

But, yeah, you got to reorient, economics isn't hard. It's everything your grandmother told you, but it's kind of like hard, take your medicine and do the right thing, but I think much more focused on the long run fiscal situation, long run structure, our social programs, the incentives to innovate, to grow businesses.

That kind of stuff is just much easier, much bigger payoff than worrying a lot about whether Jay Powell sneezes.

Bill Whalen: Well, let's spend a minute on the Fed, though, John. I mean, if there's such a thing as a Pinata in the nation's capital, it's the Federal Reserve, and you've heard people screaming, the Fed should have cut rates, this would not have happened.

John H. Cochrane: Well, I think the Fed needs to get out of the business of propping up the stock market. And isn't that a little bit how we got into this business in the first place? And I think the Fed is properly trying to distance itself from the stock. Now when there's a crash 87, the Fed did the right thing by making sure banks didn't fail.

And maybe we should ask why the banks are so sensitive to stuff anyway. So you wanna provide liquidity in these situations, but preemptively lowering interest rates to keep stock market booms going is a terrible way to run a central bank. So I would say no on that one.

And the Fed still needs to buy credibility. Their number one thing is inflation. And with a 2% target, inflation hit 8% or 9%. Let's buy ourselves some credibility and inflation get the first thing done right before you go on to propping up stock markets.

Bill Whalen: So, John, you're in Chicago today, but HR and I are back in California in the land of earthquakes.

And there are two kinds of earthquakes in California. There are tremors that are just one offs and don't happen again. Then there are tremors that are precursors to something bigger and better coming down the road. John, so you look at what happened on Monday. Is that a one off or is that a precursor of something bigger to come?

John H. Cochrane: Let me prove to you why no one knows, because if I could tell you, the stock market would go down tomorrow, then wed all go out and sell and the stock market would have gone out today. We know something really good about the stock market, which is unpredictable.

Half of the time you look back and say, boy, I wish I had sold yesterday. And half of the time like 87, it bounces right back and this was a buying opportunity. Buy on the dip and go back in. Which is it? I don't know, we'll see.

Bill Whalen: To be continued.

If you guys wouldn't mind, I'd like to take a detour for a second. There are two anniversaries coming up this week that I think we should touch on. The first is August 8th, that is the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon resigning from office. And HR, here's what I'm curious about.

The Pew Research center at all times is studying the public's trust in government. They've been doing this going back to 1958. I looked up the numbers in 1974, HR, 36% of the government at the time of Nixon's resignation had trusted the government. You know what the numbers are for 2024?

24%. So, HR, what's happened over the last 50 years? Why is one third fewer the public, less trustful of government?

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I've been looking into this for several years now, trying to understand kinda the lack of confidence, right? Lack of confidence in our democratic principles, institutions, processes.

And we have a great program at Hoover now on American institutions and revitalizing, it's called RAI, Revitalizing American Institutions. And I think it's because of the over optimism of the 90s, followed by kind of the pessimism and disappointment of the 2000s, including, as we were alluding to earlier, Bill, the unanticipated length and difficulty of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Especially in contrast to these ideas of fast, cheap efficient wars waged from standoff range kind of the nonsense of the revolution in military affairs. We're also been talking about the financial crisis, right, 2008/2009, toss in an opioid epidemic. And then the transitions in the global economy associated with the loss of manufacturing jobs to China and the numbers of Americans that were left behind.

So I think that all of this combined with social media and the degree to which social media kind of feeds into that discontent by showing people more and more extreme and negative content. Now, after that, a pandemic, the violence in our cities that followed George Floyd's murder, and the vitriolic nature of our political discourse.

I mean, it just goes on and on, right? I think Americans have experienced these kind of traumas and have lost confidence in their government. And really want a leader, I think, at this stage, who can disrupt what needs to be disrupted in Washington, but not be so disruptive that they disrupt their own agenda.

And somebody who can get to the politics of addition, bring more Americans together around strengthening our common identity as Americans and a common agenda for building a better future. I mean, with both presidential candidates, man, I just don't think either one of them really fit that bill, I'm not.

In terms of getting to the politics of addition, they seem to both be inclined to double down on their most loyal and relatively narrow political base. But, John, I'm out of my area now, talking about US domestic experience and the economy and how that's created this lack of confidence.

John H. Cochrane: Being out of our areas has never stopped us before. That's the whole point of this show.

H.R. McMaster: What do you think, John? What do you think?

John H. Cochrane: I have a different view, somewhat grumpier view of the same thing, you're always grumpy, okay? Trust has to be earned.

And I think what you pointed out was the massive ways in which the institutions of our government, not just the leaders, have shown themselves to be horrendously incompetent. And people see that and they don't trust them for reasons that the people lost or social media or something of the sort.

Yeah, you mentioned the financial crisis where we learned, hey, the people in charge of the financial system don't know what they're doing.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah.

John H. Cochrane: But just more recently that the Hunter Biden laptop story, when a bunch of national security bigwigs showed themselves happily lying in public. And they did not lie, COVID, the average person has seen.

Wait, the lab leak, that's a horrible misinformation, you're not allowed to believe that it's censored, oops.

John H. Cochrane: Guess it was true after all. Masked, everybody's got to go grab masks. Close down the schools, turns out absolutely no evidence for closed down the schools, not even stay 2ft apart from each other at any basis.

So the amount of incompetence and politicized lying to us that's going on, Biden's just fine until, whoops, no, he wasn't after all.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, not secure in the southern border, right, I mean the whole, I mean, you could, yeah, go on and on about this.

John H. Cochrane: Yeah, so the trust is, and it's not just about leaders, it's about institutions.

It wasn't Trump running the CDC, it was Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx running the CDC. And they turned out to be politicized and incompetent. So people have lost trust in the CDC, it just is just crying wolf, you cry wolf three times and they don't listen to you next time and all.

So I think it really means you have to bring back competence in the institutions, which means bringing back trying to do your basic job right and be honest with the American people. There's some hope, I mean, don't just look at the bloviation from the leaders, but I certainly know that there's some thought among the Republicans to really reform what goes on inside the agencies.

And if that is to depoliticize them, let's hope so and make them honest and more trustworthy. That could help bring back trust, but you got to earn the trust, hard to earn. And it comes from behaving by respecting norms. This agency is, the securities and Exchange Commission, is here to make markets good, not to affect climate change, as one tiny example.

Obey the norms, obey the limits on your agency, be competent, be honest with the American people and earn back their trust. And it's in the institutions, not just in the character of the leaders.

Bill Whalen: Now, the Gallup organization doesn't look at public trust, they look at what they call confidence.

And they find the least confidence expressed in Congress, which John is speaking to the media, which John may have spoken to, and criminal justice. But there are three entities that have a majority plus confidence in the United States, and they are small business, police, and the military. HR do you see any thread there between those three institutions, small business, police, and military?

H.R. McMaster: Well, I think that these are people who make a difference in their local communities in terms of small businesses. And I think that's where you can become more optimistic about America. You look at us at the macro level from the outside, I mean, it's pretty ugly, I mean, I don't know how to, and I'm the optimist in the crew.

But when you look at the local level, you see a lot of vitality. And it turns out to be really super hard to screw up America and our federal system and our relative decentralized nature of governance and so forth. And our free market economy and entrepreneurship and everything else.

And then for police and the military, these are people who are sworn to serve the country and to protect their fellow citizens. And I think that that ethic of service is what people respect, and we have to, in all institutions, earn that respect. And I'm concerned about the degree to which both political parties have tried to politicize the military.

I mean, the headline is, the military is not woke, the military is not extremist. Although there are people who are trying to push it in different directions, the military in different directions for partisan political gain. And I would just say, hands off, damn it. We don't want to infect our military with the same kind of orthodoxy that has destroyed communities on college campuses, for example.

Anyway, I'm concerned, I don't think we should be complacent about relatively high numbers in those institutions. And we have to really double down on our efforts to strengthen even the institutions that have a relatively high degree of confidence to the American people.

Bill Whalen: John?

John H. Cochrane: Well, I'll put in a plug for the one I like this.

I think the Supreme Court's doing a tremendous job, and they get a lot of guff about it. But you look carefully and there's a lot of 90 decisions on capping the craziness that's coming and that they stop Trump as much as Biden. I'll signal one, which I thought was very interesting, is the Trump immunity case.

And of course, the Democrats instantly went, you're enhancing the dictator. They just saved, Joe Biden because the first thing the Trump administration is gonna do is send the Justice Department out after Biden. For, let's see, you spent $300 billion on student loans, even though the Supreme Court said it was inconstitutional, we're gonna send you to jail for it.

And you know what? Whoops, sorry, you're not allowed to do that. This was, Madison was really clear about why you don't persecute presidential candidates. The founders were very good, they really cleaned up one of the, that's just one of many things they're doing. So I don't know, of course, I don't agree with all their decisions.

But that is an institution that seems to be functioning quite well right now. Even though, speaking of norm busting, we now have a tradition that every state of the Union address, the president has to say, mean to the Supreme Court, which is the sort of thing we used not to do.

H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I mean, it's a great example of, prioritizing partisan interests over an institution, I mean, the degree to which the Biden administration has come after the Supreme Court. And this recommended revisions to the Supreme Court to weaken the third branch of government and throw checks and balances out of balance.

I mean, I think this is, just because you don't like their rulings, it doesn't mean that you should undermine another branch of government. That's a threat to democracy, I think.

John H. Cochrane: And that's an example of the kind of norms that used to be enforced and that are no longer in force.

Anyway, there's one institution that I like still.

Bill Whalen: The other anniversary this week is the 150th birthday of Herbert Hoover and let's make this a very quick exit question. If there is no Herbert Hoover, gentlemen, then there is no Hoover Institution, so, HR McMaster, without a Hoover Institution, what are you doing these days?

H.R. McMaster: I'll tell you, I'd be trying to do what I'm doing somewhere else and probably not do it very effectively. And both books that I finished, I wrote in the acknowledgments, I cannot imagine writing these books anywhere else but at the Hoover Institution. Because I have, as you see on this show, fantastic colleagues, extraordinary students who I get to work with.

I mean, if you wanna restore your confidence in the younger generation, hey, meet some of my research assistants and some of my students, they're fantastic young people. And I don't think I would have the platform, I mean, we have a tremendous team, like, the Hoover staff is fantastic.

I mean, Shana Farley, who came up with the idea for the show, for example. So, I think I've mentioned to viewers, I particularly made a mission statement for myself when I retired from the army after 34 years. Which was, to contribute to a deeper, more full understanding of the most significant challenges and opportunities we face internationally as a way to bring Americans together for meaningful, respectful discussions.

And to generate ideas about how we can build a better future, more secure, more prosperous future. And so, I could not do that, I don't think, effectively, anywhere but Hoover. I mean, it's just a fantastic place to be. And Herbert Hoover, if Americans are looking for an example of somebody to emulate, I wish more Americans were familiar with his personal story.

He's orphaned, he moves to Washington state, he studies and prepares for entry to some university he hopes he can go to. He hears about this new University, Stanford, and applies cuz he hears the tuition is free, he's in the inaugural class of Stanford. He becomes a very successful engineer, and that logistics and engineering expertise is what leads Woodrow Wilson to ask him to lead a humanitarian relief effort after World War I.

He saves millions of people from starvation, and then President Roosevelt and then Truman asked him to do the same thing after world War II. He was an advocate for individual rights, small but effective government, I mean, he was a visionary, but also he was kind of an example of what you can achieve in America.

And he was also a humanitarian, I mean, the more I learn about him and read what he's written, I think he actually wrote like 14 books, I forget what the exact number is. But it's just a phenomenal person, and so we're lucky to be an organization that bears his name as well.

John H. Cochrane: To which I'd add, after World War I, he scooped up a whole bunch of documents hanging out around the Versailles and said, boy, this World War I thing wasn't that great. Why don't I take all these documents and give Hoover a bunch of money to storm, and maybe scholars can figure out how we cannot do this again, which is how the Hoover Institution started.

So in addition to what HR said about how it's benefited me tremendously, thanks, Herbert Hoover, for that, a clear eye thing of, it's kind of a strange thing to do. I'm gonna Hoover up all these documents and make an archive so we can figure out how to not do this war again, nice idea.

Bill Whalen: Where would you be, John, still in Chicago? Or, I assume you'll not be in Palo Alto.

John H. Cochrane: Yeah, I had a great job, I would be teaching classes at the University of Chicago, writing papers, but nowhere near able to do the larger integrative projects that I've been able to do at Hoover.

Nowhere near able to have the time to do the outreach and things like this show, and think seriously about public policy programs. There's just only so many hours in the day, and I wouldn't have had this wonderful set of colleagues that I've had. So, it's just been a wonderful adventure for me, I'm thankful every day that I happen to get this job.

I know from inside how our hiring process works, and boy, am I lucky that I made it through.

Bill Whalen: Let me just piggyback on what all you said, and happy birthday to President Hoover, and many regards to Hoover family, who will be gathering at West Branch, Iowa, for the celebrations on the 10th.

And with that, gentlemen, onto the lightning round.

Bill Whalen: Lightning round. Okay, gentlemen, we have two questions, one begins with a question from Bill Impalo, Alto, who wants to ask John at HR, what do you make of Kamala Harris's selection of Vice President, HR?

H.R. McMaster: Hey, I don't really know enough yet, I mean, I know that he does seem to be the more left of those who were under consideration.

So it seems, like President Trump, the selection was to double down on Vice President Harris's base rather than get to these politics of addition that she might have been able to get to with somebody like Josh Shapiro. Who doesn't have the same kind of extreme ideological views on energy, for example, that she does.

Or as more sympathetic, maybe to the effort to counter Iran, and recognize Iran as the threat in the Middle east, from a foreign policy perspective. I mean I guess it's kind of hashtag predictable these days, that both political parties are doubled down on their base instead of trying to be more inclusive.

Bill Whalen: John.

John H. Cochrane: Trump said hilariously, Vince, don't worry about it, you're voting for me, not for him. I wanna say something nice about VP Harris, I am really admiring her ability to keep her mouth shut, something that Trump showed himself unable to do at the Republican race. The moment where what you want to do is the, hey, geography machine is going, people are projecting onto you all sorts of wonderful things that have no basis in actual policy or past or whatever.

Just keep your mouth shut and let them do that project, and she's doing an amazing job of just that for the moment, we'll see how long that lasts.

Bill Whalen: Let me point out what a change in politics we've seen now in the last 24 years in America. If you go back to the first election in the 21st century, who does Al Gore pick as his running mate?

An orthodox Jewish senator from Connecticut, and who does George W Bush pick? His father's defense secretary during Desert Storm. In other words, they balance what they saw as kind of weaknesses for their ticket. And here we are 204 years later, and the two nominees did what, they doubled down on ideology.

So, interesting times we live in. Second Lightning Round question comes from Edward in New Jersey, who writes the following. Given Biden's infirmity, who do you think is actually running the United States? Burns, Blinken, and Sullivan? Others? Vice President Harris? He's referring, by the way, to CIA Director Bill Burns, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director Jake Sullivan, who holds HR's old job.

HR, who's running the government?

H.R. McMaster: We don't really know, do we, Bill, and I think this is pretty significant issue and it deserves attention from the American people. I think, who were the people who were covering up the president's condition and infirmities for so long? I mean, this is not unprecedented in American history, I'm thinking of the Woodrow Wilson administration in particular.

And it was his wife, actually, who was running the show for quite some time in the Wilson administration. Yeah, I think in terms of accountability, in terms of the rights of the American people to understand who is running the show within the executive branch. That there's been a huge failure on the part of a lot of people, around the president.

But I say in parts of the media as well, who were too willing to just buy into the narrative that the president's fine, and vibrant, and so forth.

Bill Whalen: John, our viewer didn't mention Janet Yellen, or Jerome Powell?

John H. Cochrane: They're doing lots of stuff on their own, but there is, I think Hautaine knows the inside more than I do.

When there's something going on in the middle East, and you're saying, Israel, go to it or Israel, don't you dare, that comes down to the president's desk. And so you can't just have Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell and the defense secretary running that kind of stuff quietly while the president sleeps.

Bill Whalen: Hr, maybe I watch too many bad movies, but you've worked in the White House, you've run NSC. To what extent could a rogue actor, a player, really kind of get out of his lane and run the government, for example, how far could you have pushed in your job?

H.R. McMaster: Well, that wasn't my job, and I knew what my job was, it was to give the president options. And give the elected president the ability to determine his agenda and to make his own decisions. But there are people who come into an administration with their own narrow agenda, that they want to get through, and they'll try different ways to do it, but hopefully there's a process.

And what we would try to do is whenever there was one of those kinda animals roaming the plane. To try to bring them into the herd of not to suppress their idea, but to put their idea into the process. So it wasn't just trying to do an end run for example,so I think a lot of it depends on the White House chief of staff.

And national security advisor, those who are really staffing the president. And hopefully, with an eye toward giving the president, not restricting the president's access to his advisors, and different points of view and options, but expanding it. And really the role that I think, for the national security advisor is to be the guardian of the president's independence of judgment.

And I think that's the attitude you wanna bring into those kind of jobs.

Bill Whalen: Okay, gentlemen, we leave it there for this episode, thanks for coming on today, we missed Niall, and we do wonder where he is somewhere. We need to get a visual of Niall, like in one of those, like, british sailors outfits or something.

Bill Whalen: Good show, gentlemen, a viewer's note, this is our last episode for August, but fear not, we will have three what we call mini episodes coming your way in the weeks ahead. I got one on one time with John, HR and Niall Ferguson, we call them any episodes so look for them as well.

We'll be back in early September, our first show will be actually featuring HR Mc Master's, stellar book at war with ourselves, my tour of duty in the Trump White House. It's available on August 28, so go buy it now and read it before we do the show, do yourself a favor, it's going to be a great book.

HR John, thanks for coming on today, enjoy the conversation, by the way, if you have questions for the good fellas, don't forget to send them in. You do that by going to Hoover.org/AskGoodFellows, what else can we plug, the Hoover institution is on X at Hooverinst. John's on X, Niall's on X, HR's on X, so go there as well.

On behalf of my colleagues John Cochrane and HR McMaster, the absent Niall Ferguson, the very talented men and women behind the scenes who make this show happen. We hope you enjoyed the conversation, and we'll see you back here in September, till then, take care, thanks for watching.

Narrator: If you enjoyed this show, and are interested in watching more content featuring HR McMaster, watch Battlegrounds, also available at hoover.org.