This Friday, Condoleezza Rice sits down with Guy Benson to discuss international affairs and American security priorities as well as changes taking place in college football; Matthew Pottinger and Liza Tobin analyze the national security implications of the scandal rocking both tech giant Nvidia and the Trump administration; Anne Neuberger warns of the risk of cyberattacks across American critical infrastructure; and Joshua Rauh and Benjamin Jaros make the case that the global wealth tax movement has experienced a consequential setback with the defeat of California’s Proposition 40.
International Affairs
This week, radio broadcaster Guy Benson hosted his Guy Benson Show from the Hoover Institution’s studio, speaking with several fellows as well as Director Condoleezza Rice. Benson asked Rice about her time serving as national security advisor and secretary of state, and what she thinks about Marco Rubio’s approach to serving concurrently in both positions. “Marco’s doing a fantastic job, really,” says Rice. Reflecting on the midterms, she shares her concern about a possible fraying of the social contract in the United States, evident in “back-and-forth” election results and worsened by inflation, lagging wages, high housing costs, concerns about the pace of technological change, and diminished family formation. Rice describes what she sees as real accomplishments of US military actions in Iran, including severe damage to the Iranian nuclear program and setbacks for Russian and Chinese ambitions in the Middle East. After sharing her perspective on events in Israel and Ukraine, Rice comments on the “Wild West” atmosphere in college football at the moment. Calling for the preservation of “the connection between student and athlete,” Rice maintains that “college football needs to be something more than just a lighter version of the NFL.” Listen or read more here.
National Security and Technology
“Congressional investigators will soon be asking whether [former Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang helped Alice Huang, an alleged Chinese spy, to circumvent US export controls to supply powerful chips to China’s AI companies,” Distinguished Visiting Fellow Matthew Pottinger and coauthor Liza Tobin write at The Free Press. The essay traces divisions within the Trump administration over the past year on the policy question of whether to allow Chinese entities to purchase powerful Nvidia AI computing chips. Per the authors, “Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent [today] told CNBC that the Commerce Department had delayed putting necessary restrictions on Megaspeed, the company where Alice Huang was a top executive and was allegedly buying Nvidia chips for China’s use.” Pottinger and Tobin argue that Congress will likely ask Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick whether he, his family, or his former firm Cantor Fitzgerald benefited from the policy “loopholes” that allowed chip sales to Megaspeed to continue well after other executive branch departments raised concerns. Given the case’s “consequences for US technological preeminence and national security,” the authors conclude, “the Nvidia scandal could wind up being the supreme scandal of this administration.” Read more here. [Subscription required.]
As of this writing, we don’t yet know what’s behind a communications disruption at the Federal Aviation Administration that’s prompted a rare nationwide ground stop—but it’s the kind of thing that experts in cybersecurity warn could be caused by a cyberattack. As it happens, one such expert, Distinguished Visiting Fellow Anne Neuberger, published an article yesterday in The Wall Street Journal warning about America’s numerous vulnerabilities to these digital attacks, in settings including food logistics, rural hospitals, and water treatment facilities. “AI is shrinking the time between when a weakness is found and when attackers can exploit it,” she writes, adding that the tech can also help to accelerate the responses of defenders. But vulnerable institutions need to take steps to improve their preparedness and resilience, Neuberger argues. “Drills must be run that prove each critical operator—utility, payment clearinghouse, hospital network—can run for 72 hours without its IT systems,” she writes. Neuberger notes that system infrastructure upgrades may take years, but cyber risk containment can begin now through thorough, thoughtful planning and public-private partnerships. Read more here. [Subscription required.]
California Policy & Politics
“Tuesday’s election results delivered a verdict on the wealth tax movement: It has hit a wall, and the wall was in California,” Senior Fellow Joshua D. Rauh and Research Fellow Benjamin Jaros write at RealClearPolitics. Backing up this claim, they note that “California, a state that in 2024 voted for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by 20 points, just rejected a wealth tax 52.8% to 47.2% at current count.” Rauh and Jaros review the aftermath of the measure’s defeat at both the state and federal levels, as some proponents like Representative Ro Khanna “immediately called for a 2028 do-over.” Evaluating the prospects of a federal wealth tax, the scholars see a significant challenge in that such a levy “would need its own constitutional amendment, requiring two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of state legislatures.” But given how even the left-leaning California electorate responded to the idea, Rauh and Jaros conclude, it seems unlikely that an overwhelming majority of the American public would get behind such a novel tax. Read more here.
National Policy & Politics
Since the Truman administration, the president’s party losing seats in Congress during midterm elections has been a predictable feature of American politics. But a new episode of Matters of Policy & Politics considers whether something is different about the current electoral plight of the Republican Party, with Republicans now a decided minority in Congress. Robert Grady, a Hoover Institution overseer and past aide and confidant to state and federal officeholders, joins Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen to discuss the fragile state of America’s two political parties. As they note, Democrats face the challenge of how not to squander their election success, while Republicans must ponder the realities of politics after Trump. Fresh off a visit to China as part of a Hoover delegation, Grady also discusses the state of US-China relations. Drawing upon his experience as an investor and venture capitalist, he also shares his views on left-wing political movements opposed to high levels of wealth, and the state of the American economy. Turning to the recent news about Nvidia, Whalen and Grady then consider the risks inherent to companies largely defined by their CEOs. Watch or listen here.
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