Niall Ferguson, Victor Davis Hanson, and Stephen Kotkin: Three Historians Debate the Era of Trump

- The American Experiment begun almost 250 years ago. Is it finally coming to an end or is it being renewed? Three of the most accomplished historians in the English speaking world, Victor Davis Hanson, Sir Niall Ferguson and Stephen Kotkin, Uncommon Knowledge. Now welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson. All three of our guests today are fellows here at the Hoover Institution. A historian of Greece and Rome, Victor Davis Hanson has published more than 20 works of history, including his classic volume, A War Like No Other: How The Athenians And Spartans Fought The Peloponnesian War. Victor's most recent book, The End of Everything. A historian of the 19th and 20th century Sir Niall Ferguson has himself, published more than 15 books, including his own classic, The Pity Of War: Explaining World War I. Niall is now working on the second volume of his biography of Henry Kissinger. A historian of the Soviet Union, Russia, and Asia. Stephen Kotkin is the author yet again of a pile of books including Uncivil Society: 1989 And The Implosion Of The Communist Establishment. Stephen is now working on the third and final volume of his definitive biography of Joseph Stalin. Gentlemen, welcome. The scale of consequentiality. Two quotations, and I'm going to ask you for a number. Here are the quotations. Professor of political science, David Faris in Newsweek recently, quote, Trump may go down as the least effective president in modern history. His record of failure is so overwhelming that historians may struggle to find anything worth remembering. Here's the second. This is an article in American Heritage. Recently, Mr. Trump may be pilloried by contemporary scholars even as he is remembered in history as perhaps the most consequential president in three quarters of a century. On a scale of consequentiality, Abraham Lincoln is 10. Chester Alan Arthur is one. Give me a number. Victor? Seven. Niall? I'll go higher. Eight. Really? Yes, Stephen, as of

- Now.

- Alright.

- Too early to tell. Oh,

- But if you had to give me a number,

- You had historians on the program intentionally and now you're gonna pay the price. Okay. It's just way too early to tell. 80-year-old men who are president are a small number of our presidents so far, and it's hard to tell when we can finally get beyond the group of 80 year olds running politics and what comes next. And what comes next will be as consequential or more consequential.

- I disagree with that. We are in the fifth year of the Trump era, and I think it's not too early to tell that he's one of the most consequential presidents, certainly of the post-war era. Think of the transformation he has brought about in the way politics itself functions in the United States. Donald Trump has transformed the nature of political discourse. That alone is consequential. He broke up a post-war order, a set of assumptions, not least of which was the free trade should be the basis of US international economic policy. No, he's a transformative figure and I think we can tell Now, does it end in tears or in triumph That we can't tell and that won't be obvious until the end of his term, but it's clear that he's drastically altered the way that American politics works. And I'd go further. I think he's even more consequential internationally. He's broken the post-war international order. He's radically altered it and I think irreversibly altered it. And any European will agree with that. They don't like it, but they'll admit everything has changed because of Donald Trump. I would say,

- Hold on, hold on, on hold on. The WTO was broken before Trump was in politics. Boys, the imperial presidency was written by Arthur Schlesinger question in 1973. I mean, you know, let's be historians for a second.

- Well, let's be historians, Steve, things that the average tariff rate of the United States today has not been as high as this since the 1930s.

- The US is 25% of global GDP since 1870. And that's with tariffs and without tariffs with income tax and without

- Income tax. We don't judge president's. Cons. This,

- The cons is

- A global GD

- State. The consequentiality of a president is not measured by policy change.

- Hold on, here's a new, I'm not, we are moving to a new question. We will

- Let him say this

- Argument.

- Say,

- Could I just say one thing?

- Let him have a say. You invited him on the show. I

- Think he did. I

- Worked hard on this script. Apparently we don't need it

- Boys. Niall has outlined the foreign policy. I think he did three things that were transformational on domestic policy.

- Not the particular issues. Stop. We'll get to domestic policy policy

- Issues. Let him

- I, I promise I will carve out a space for you to say what you're going to say. But first I have another sort of preliminary question which I think is truly interesting, at least to me, and here it is. He won a very narrow victory as a proportion of the popular vote. Donald Trump won reelection in the sixth closest presidential contest in American history. Republicans won a majority in the house of only five seats, one of the smallest majorities in all of history. They won a majority of the Senate of six seats, which is fairly sizable as Republican majorities go. But still far from overwhelming. So we have a squeaker of an election.

- I nobody, I've been,

- Nobody could argue that that was a mandate. Yes I could. Alright, then you get the first go at this. We get a squeaker of an election and an enormous change in whatever you want to call it. The zeitgeist, the feel of the country. DEI is dismantled, the border is closed. Go. How does that happen? He had a mandate

- Compared to what Republicans usually do. He was the first American Republican president in since 2004 in 20 years to win the popular vote. No one, nobody else had done that. McCain didn't do it. Romney didn't do it. Trump did, didn't do it. The first time he did that, he won the popular and the electoral ballot. He now controls whether you like it or not or whatever margin. Right? There is a conservative majority in the house, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the executive branch. That's very rare for all branches of government to be in their hands. He radically changed the Republican party. It's completely different. It's a nationalist populist party. And he got a record number of Hispanics, 49%. He won 55% of the Mexican-American vote. He won 23% of the African-American male vote on most of the key issues on the border. Illegal immigration, crime, energy, foreign policy. There were 60, 40, 30, 70 issues that he won on all of those issues. He was outspent three to one in the campaign and he still overcame that. And he was indicted 93 times,

- Right?

- And he was taken off the ballot, at least attempted in 25 states. He had his home rated. So with all of that and to come through and win all of the swing states and 93% of the counties in the, in the country, maybe by small margins. But that was an amazing achievement. So, so what I'm

- Trying to get at is the contrast. I grant, I grant everything you're saying, but if you look at major shifts in American politics and the zeitgeist, because it's larger, there's a culture, it feels as though the culture has shifted as well. You go to the 1930s and Franklin Roosevelt wins and overwhelmingly huge landslide in 32. Or you go to the 1980s and Reagan wins 49 out of 50 states, or you go to the 1960s, LBJ before he enacts the new society again, wins a huge landslide. And this is nothing like those landslides. So are we surprised or are you with Victor? No, no, no. We all should have seen it coming.

- A transformation of the Republican party, which could well be enduring, at least for a generation is inarguable. That's the point. That's Victor made.

- That's done. - You asked about transformation of America.

- Yes,

- That's not the Republican party. Republicans are probably 30% or so of the country. We're a 30, 30, 40 country, 30 for each party. And 40, neither party. Trump won 77 million votes, which is a big number. Harris won 75 million, 89 million did not vote of the 240 million or so who are adult voting age. So for us, the transformation of the Republican party is a big issue for sure, especially where it was when some of us were growing up.

- And the flip side is true. He destroyed the Democratic party as we know it. It's not the same democratic

- Party. I think the Democrats had a bigger hand than Trump in that suicide. But I'll give you that. He contributed to their emulation, which we are still witnessing. But the issue is how enduring is this for America, for American power in the world? I think that's not the same question as the sec. The first and second questions that you asked are not the same. But Niall wants to get in.

- I I would simply add that compared with the 2020 election, the outcome was strikingly clear at a far, far more decisively in Trump's favor than almost any opinion poll or pundit foresaw. And if you think back to the atmosphere, when the election results were coming in, I remember calling it a vibe shift. It was in marked con vibe shift, a marked contrast to the atmosphere four years before or four years before that. Those were close elections. I don't think the 2024 election was close by comparison with the previous two elections.

- So again, independents dominate the country and Trump is underwater even on most of his signature issues

- With independence.

- Certainly with independence. But overall, including all the various,

- Today's Harvard Harris poll had overwhelming support for border security and 56% were in favor of deportations despite all the ice

- S Yes, but, but Trump's methods are underwater, even though the policy of border security and fighting crime and some of the other signature issues are clearly supported, Trump's way of doing it is not clearly supported in the country. But again, let's just say that elections don't change the nature of the country. Political figures who are transformative are not that frequent. You mentioned Roosevelt and Reagan. We could go abroad to Niall's home country and we could find a few there. We couldn't find a lot, but we could definitely find a few. Victor could tell you in the sweep of 2000 years since the classical heritage, how many have been transformed? So we just have, the numbers are small to be careful, right? Johnson's landslide resulted in him not running again. Nixon's landslide resulted in him resigning. So it just doesn't happen that frequently. And also we have to be careful with policy. We overestimate the impact of policy rather than deep and fun. Niall wrote a book about technology and the, the power of disruptive technology is clearly as big or bigger than any particular policy we might be favorably disposed to or not.

- But Steve,

- So I'm not trying to say that Trump is irrelevant when it comes to the transformation of the Republican party. I think Victor was quite

- Eloquent. It's not, it's not just that he is, he's waging a 360 degree counter-revolution. It's sort of like the Thermador reaction to the jackmans because he's not just doing politics, he's doing culture, sociology, economics, it's everything from the Smithsonian to the Kennedy Gallery to architecture to DEI to transgendered sports. It's, he's trying to flood the zone in every aspect of our lives and undo the progressive pop project single-handedly, basically at the last northern nor Republican. Lemme make a couple points, lemme question. Where

- Is the Thermador reaction today? I mean the original Thermador reaction, how lasting was the Thermador

- Reaction? I can tell you that no, right now as we're talking, almost every university in the United States has reinstated the SAT and there's no more loyal diversity oaths they're requiring for admission. I can tell you that all through the San Joaquin Valley, every high school is not allowing transgendered female ma male females to compete in high school sports. I can tell you it's, it's pretty

- Victor, the French Thermador reaction. Where is that today in France? Right? It looked like the biggest thing when it happened in real time, the Thermador reaction, and I'm talking about the fullness of time, is the Thermador reaction today, the dominant well take culture in politics of France.

- Two, there's no more Jacobin, there's no 1619 project. We're not renaming tearing down statues.

- Two point Niall makes two points than we go on foreign policy have not not been made. This is only the second time that a president's won a non-consecutive second term. Only Grover Cleveland previously did that. And that means we've had Trump for more than five years because he never went away, despite every effort to cancel him in 2021, he did not go away. And in that sense, I think he's been the dominant figure of American politics over

- A decade,

- Forever, a decade. And that's, that's the first point I would make. The second point I'd make goes to something you just said, Steve. Yes, there's been a profound transformation in our life because of the technological changes associated with the internet. Trump was the first president fully to understand how radically that altered the public sphere in the United States and to exploit that transformation. Virtually none of his rivals could match that. Hillary Clinton certainly couldn't. Kamala Harris was a fail on social media. But that transformation was something that Trump understood. That's why I think when historians come long after we are gone to write about this era, they will call it the Trump era. And they will recognize that there was a profound reaction that Trump led against a whole set of liberal norms that were most firmly ensconced in the universities as Victor just implied, but actually extended far beyond the universities into a reestablished institution in the media and so on. And that reaction, I think is gonna be very hard to undo. That's the sense in which he's been transformative.

- Obama was first on social media, not Trump. And secondly, they were not liberal norms. That's that's they were hard left Norths was good

- On Google, but Obama

- Was the Google we hard left norms.

- Obama was the Google, not liberal norms. Obama was the Google president. He started, but Trump was the Twitter president. You can see that if you look at the data

- Boys foreign policy two quotations George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, quote, the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. Here's Walter Russell Mead writing recently in the Wall Street Journal on Donald Trump as a leader in the tradition of President Andrew Jackson. Quote, Jacksonians feel no need to spread democracy around the world. But when the US is attacked, they believe every measure is justified. Do we have a Trump doctrine? Is the Trump doctrine that the rest of the world is on its own unless they mess with us

- Or our allies? I don't think that's what it is. And I don't think, I don't think Andrew Jackson's relevant here. Look, the United States is an radically different situation from the situation of the early 19th century. It is a superpower and it can't just stop being a superpower. What I'm struck by is the resemblance to a more recent president, Richard Nixon. It seems to me that President Trump has many nixonian traits. One of them is to feel that America's allies are free riders. And his response to this has been to tell the Europeans it's no longer possible for you to outsource your national security to the United States. So that's a very nickson thing to have done based a sense that the US can't do everything. But it's not isolationism and it's not Jacksonian is, look at his involvement in the Middle East. President Trump, like Nixon wants to be remembered as a peacemaker. That was one of Nixon's great preoccupations. Go right back to the 1969 inaugural. And this is again, I think one of Trump's big motives. He really genuinely wants to bring peace, not just Gar, not just to Gaza, but to the Middle East. And if you look at that 20 point plan that only just a few days ago was published, it's actually a rather impressive attempt to bring about a decisive change in that region. In the case of Europe, as I've mentioned, he's told the Europeans, you are on your own. The war in Ukraine is now your problem because I can't deliver Putin. And I, I tried, that's an important and rather Nixonian thing. He's not vietnamized, he's European. European security. And lastly, I think that what Trump's doing in the international economy very closely reminds me of 1971, where if you remember, Nixon announced not only that he was going to go to Beijing, but also that he was severing the link between the dollar and gold and imposing a 10% tariff on all American imports. So I think the real inspiration, which was the beginning of the

- Seventies, stagflation and disarray, that lasted economic disarray,

- That lasted decade. But if you actually ask the question, why did we end up with double digit inflation, that that was the old price shock that came outta the 73 74 Middle Eastern crisis. If you've got peace in the Middle East, that's far, far less likely to happen.

- I i I would call it reactive deterrence. So he doesn't reactive deterrence. Yes. Alright, go ahead. It's to paraphrase, the strong men saw it's no better friend, no worse enemy, right? So he looks around the globe and he sees certain people, certain nations per personalities that he can work with and he likes and they have common interest. And he tells them that if he aligns with the United States, all good things can happen. And then there's people who don't want to do it and that it's not really ideological to some degree it is. And then he, he establishes deterrence. But what's weird about it is because of the MAGA base and the history of intervention on the ground in the Middle East and Vietnam and all of that, he, he's the first president that has what Colin Powell and exit strategy. So he goes in and takes out in 30 minutes the Iranian nuclear project for maybe four or five years. And then they want a performance art hit on our forces and gutter. So he evacuates, they tell 'em they're gonna come. Iran hits our base with some ceremony, miss. And then he says, it's

- Fine,

- It's over. It's over. And we're gonna make Iran great. He did the same thing when he killed Soleimani. He said, they're gonna get mad, they're gonna shoot some missiles. Everybody stay in the base. They won't. So he, his idea is he, he wants to say, don't do it, don't do it, but if you do it, this is what we're going to do to you. But he, he has a way to stop it. So we don't have what his base calls forever wars, at least so far, takes the Wagner group out, takes Soleimani out, takes Baghdadi out, neutralizes Kim Jong-un for a while, and he doesn't get bogged down, no pretensions about nation building, changing the world. Same thing with the, these, you know, international criminal court, world Health organization. Everybody knew that these groups were completely corrupt. And he comes along and says, we're done. And they say, you can't do that. This is the un spinoff. He says, we're done. And everybody says, wow, they were done, weren't they? They were kind of corrupt. It was like he, he kicked in a rotten corpse or something. And that's what he does. And everybody gets very angry and says, you can't do that, you can't do that. And then all of a sudden they said, you know, like he went over the Europeans at the funeral of the Pope or at the Notre Dame Cathedral. He was like, Caesar said, you know of it was Shakespeare said, if she's from that line and Julius Caesar, he doss stride over us like a colossus

- Because

- He goes in there and everybody wants to, he has a blue suit on. They say he can't wear a blue suit. They all, all of a sudden you look back, there's three or four people wearing a blue suit. He's at the Notre Dame Cathedral and Macron's, let me get near him. And what does he tell Mccn? He tells 'em, all your borders are completely open. You left all, you fell for this stupid Merkel. You left Schroeder deal with the Russians. You're not pumping natural gas. You have no military you. And they say, yeah, that's right, and we're gonna, you know, it, it's not, Niall was right about the first term. It, it's not just the, the reaction to the election, but he looks back at his first term as incomplete. And he was naive and he played the bipartisan, he pointed a lot of people from the wa, bill Barr, John Bolton. This time it's disruptive and it's a reaction to his first term and its reaction to the wilderness years of which he, he says he is not on a revenge tour, but that's a motivation.

- Stephen watch this. This is Niall Ferguson on this program seven months ago.

- The window of opportunity in which he can make a move on Taiwan may close, perhaps the Trump administration starts seriously to arm Taiwan. Although that is by no means clear, right? Or perhaps a new president comes along who's a lot more hawkish, conventionally hawkish than President Trump, who's since his election has spoken quite imminently of China. Who wants to go to Beijing? Who invited Xi to the inauguration. So the key question for us, the big geopolitical question is, does Xi make a move on Taiwan? While the opportunity is almost irresistibly tempting, it will be, I'm absolutely sure during this administration, during this presidential term,

- If Xi moves on Taiwan, how will Trump respond?

- If I had any insight into how Trump thinks and responds, I wouldn't be on this show. I'd be the richest investor in the world. So Trump will be judged on China policy because that is the only significant world historical consequential issue for foreign policy today. There are issues that are enormous for the people involved. What's happening in Sudan is colossal for the people in Sudan. It's not colossal for world order. What's happening in Gaza is of great moment for all the people who are emotionally connected there, as well as the people there, as well as the state of Israel and is Israel supporters around the world. What happens in Chi with China or not with China is decisive for American power in the world going forward. That's where Trump will be judged. And some of these other issues which look quite significant because we're living through them. There are issues in history that I could bring up now that you would say, what's that? But at the time, they played a huge role in people's consciousness and in public discussions. And then they vanished into the ether, into the textbooks that are sitting in offsite storage. So the China one is in fact the big one, so that's correct. What Trump will do or won't do is anybody's guess, including Trump's guess.

- Can you give

- Him, he doesn't know preliminary grade, he doesn't know, but this is what's going on. So China has announced that it is gonna be able to do this if it wants

- Tik Taiwan,

- And not only take Taiwan collapse American power in East Asia. So you have three borders of defeat in the world today where America is vulnerable with the Soviet Union, you had borders of victory. That meant that the Soviets could become a status quo power. They could do Deante, they could sign the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which for us was a human rights agreement, recognizing human rights. And for them was recognition of their post World War II borders. 'cause remember they had won right Ukraine, borders of defeat for Russia, Israel borders of defeat for Arabs in the neighborhood and for Iran, Taiwan borders of defeat for China. So there are revisionism going on to overcome borders of defeat. That's not something you negotiate, that's not something you reach Deana China, Russia wants to roll back American power in Europe. Iran wants to roll back American power in the Middle East and China wants to roll back American power in East Asia. And they have a kind of ante cooperation, not a formal alliance engaged in this anti-Western project. And so the goal is not just to take Taiwan, that's important. It's clearly a high priority and they're gonna do that one way or another. Either Taiwan is gonna capitulate and they're gonna get it for free. Like their ancient military analysts talked about how you win a war or they're gonna fight for it if they feel that that's necessary. But that's just the beginning of the story. They're then going to revenge against Japan, Japan's atrocities against China and World War ii, that's on the agenda and they're gonna hit Japan back for that. And so Japan's ability to withstand China is in question. They're also gonna evict American military bases from South Korea, from the Philippines if they can, and push America back to the second island chain, off the first island chain as it's known and maybe beyond the second island chain. And remember, the appetite grows in the eating. People say, well, Xi Jinping only wants Taiwan. Once you get that, if you get it, which is still a question you, your appetite grows. You want the next and the next and the next. And so if he's successful in collapsing American power in East Asia, in evicting us from the first island chain, then maybe he wants more or maybe his successors want more. So what are we doing about China? That's the only question in foreign policy.

- It matters

- That I think is of the greatest moment.

- Can I, can I say that? That's the question that Donald Trump asked on the campaign trail in 20 15 16. He was the first person to say China is posing a major economic, as well as strategic challenge to the United States. He was the one who tore up the old national security strategy of success of government saying that the rise of China was a win-win and replaced it. Our colleague, HR McMaster did much of the work with a national security strategy that identified China as well as to a lesser extent, Russia as strategic rivals. Now I think there's an economic dimension to this, Steve, which you left out. I agree with what you say about China's goals, but I think the key from Donald Trump's perspective is economic more than it's geopolitical. One of the reasons Trump got elected was he was prepared to call out the effects of free trade on the United States were to hollow out our manufacturing and essentially export manufacturing jobs to China. Trump said he was gonna address that problem. One of the interesting things about Trump is that he has to some extent done that. Now, I'm not a big fan of the tariffs, but if you look at China's share of global manufacturing value added, it's actually declined since 2021. And America's share has grown. So something important is happening. I think it's difficult, it's really hard to re industrialize the United States, but it is an economic competition between the United States and China. China will not be able to do the things that you are describing. If it loses the AI race, there's a decent chance that it will. It's certainly not caught up with the best of the large language models that the US tech companies are building. So I think from Trump's vantage point, the key issue is an economic one. Can you catch up with that extraordinary manufacturing leap forward? That's happened particularly on Xi Jinping's watch

- Victor could could for you. But could I also just toss one more fact onto the table, which is that remarkably enough, the Trump administration's first defense budget is actually, in real terms, a little bit smaller than Biden's last defense budget all over to you on foreign policy.

- He inherited a $1.9 trillion annual deficit, $37 trillion national debt, $1.1 trillion trade deficit. So there was constraints on him, but

- Part of that is his first term.

- Yes, he,

- But that was

- COVID.

- He's not a victim. He's also a perpetrator in fiscal insanity.

- So what the bipo, it's been a bypass as an achievement. Fiscal boys

- Boy, Victor. Victor, including fair, according the Red Sea to let Victor go through.

- The reason that Putin went in to Ukraine was because he thought that he could, And he could, and he didn't go in during Trump's four years, but he did go in during George W. Bush and Dosa in Georgia. He did go in during Obama to Crimea and the dome bass. And he did go in to try to take KEB during. And so they feel they, the foreign policy antagonists in the United States feel that he's unpredictable and he's capable of doing anything at any time to anybody, anywhere, number one. And anytime that you get predictable in this world, for example, the Israelis, when you, when I would go over to Israel and they'd talk about Hamas and Gaza, it was frightening the last two years before 2000

- When they would talk about Hamas.

- Yes, they would say things like, 20,000 people work here and when they get injured, we take 'em to the ER room and look at our fence. It's not very defensible, right? It, it looked pathetic,

- Right?

- But they thought that they were playing it off. They thought that they could acculturate, same thing. So nobody ever predicted that, right? Nobody ever said, said, nobody ever predicted October 7th, yes, they said it was incomprehensible. They also said that Iran, you can't attack Iran preemptively. He told Israel don't do it. And Israel said they're a paper tiger. And they destroyed Hamas, they destroyed Hezbollah. But what I'm saying is the unimaginable was very imaginable. They said Putin would never try to take kiah. So it's very probable, if any of these belligerents think they can get away with it,

- They'll do it.

- They'll do it. And the reason then, how do you maintain deterrence? It's psychological and material. So when you look at psycho, there's no way in the world Donald Trump would've had his national security advisor and Secretary of State go to Anchorage, Alaska and be dressed down and humiliated in the way that Blinken and Sullivan were. And two months into the administration, there's no way he would let a balloon traverse from China across half of the continental United States

- As Biden did.

- Yes. Just psychological. He would never allow that. He would've shot it down. He would've blown it up. And I think when you look at 300,000 students from China, and, and I think that's a way that, that they see that as a way of technological transfer among many other ways. Yeah,

- Some 300, actually I think it's a little more than 300,000 Chinese nationals now studying in American

- Universities. Yes. Okay. And there's 1.1 million foreign students in, in general, and Trump is using that to either increase or decrease as leverage with them. But my point is that in key areas like ai, like genetic engineering, like robotics, like cryptocurrency, it's not clear that China's ahead and the United States is drawing in all sorts of people now. And I think this reform of the university to be a, a disinterested, open, empirical place again will in the short term, it's gonna hurt it. But in the long term it's gonna be very positive. But when you look at the basics of a civilization energy, United States is the largest natural gas producer of the na largest national natural oil producer. And it's fourth in coal. It's the largest producer of atomic energy, even in

- Its

- End deer.

- But here's where it gets tricky, because in, in, in, in so far that's all true. The problem is that China's increased its electricity generation by an extraordinary amount investing in solar particularly, but renewables more broadly,

- Mostly in

- Coal. And, and, and, well no, it's actually done. The investment heavily in renewables, it's grown, its coal, but it's at the real miracle that we are seeing in China's economy is an incredible increase in the amount of electricity generated from all sources. This is gonna matter in the AI race because the AI race is a, a very electricity hungry one. Can we talk about tariffs for a minute? Because one of the things that President Trump did even before April 2nd, was essentially to impose a trade embargo on China. He imposed such high tariffs at one point that he'd amounted to a trade embargo. This failed and it revealed the strength that China has and it failed because China retaliated tit for ta, tariff for tariff, and then impose restrictions on rare earth exports because China dominates the production, the refining of rare earths. That created a huge problem, particularly for us automobile manufacturers that led to a major climb zone by the Trump administration in its trade war with China. And I, what we are seeing in China policy is a recognition that China is a formidable, poses a formidable threat that a war over Taiwan would be extremely risky for the United States. And therefore, I think we are seeing President Trump moving in the direction of Dayton with China. Looking back on that earlier interview we did, Peter, it wasn't clear at the beginning of the administration which way he was gonna go. There were plenty of hawkish people in the administration who wanted to take a much tougher line with China. President Trump, I think inclines to the Nickson trip to Beijing and big beautiful deal. I think that's what he would like

- To do. Niall, do you still stand by that prediction that you made seven months ago, that in one way or another that Xi is gonna move on Taiwan? Now we didn't have time to show the whole, but you also said there were, there are more ways of moving on Taiwan than ly posing an embargo. But one way or the other, he will move on Taiwan during this second term of President Donald Trump. Do you stand by that?

- Yes. There are different ways it can be done. I don't think an invasion's ever been very likely nor even a blockade. But you can imagine a quarantine, a loose disruption of Taiwan's trade or you can imagine a diplomatic move of the sort that I think we're already seeing, which is that President Trump says he wants a meeting with Xi Jinping, they're probably gonna meet at some point next month. Maybe President Trump goes to Beijing at some point early next year. But the Chinese have already signaled that one of the things they'll want out of that is for the United Spa states explicitly to oppose their idea of Taiwanese independence so they can achieve their objectives diplomatically. And they sense, I think that with President Trump, the opportunity's there because we know some things about Donald Trump's mind, it's not completely opaque. Remember what he told John Bolton in the first administration when Bolton was briefly on unhappily as national security advisor, he told him sitting in the Oval Office, you know Taiwan is a Sharpie. China's the resolute desk. I'm not sending the US Navy to fight over a Sharpie. So the Chinese know that with with Trump Taiwan's in play. Remember one of the things that was, strike that. So I just, I

- Haven't spoken in like an hour. No, no, no. But you did you remember who sitting still getting paid, sitting next to your getting. Hold on Victor, you get paid for this show. You

- Don't what?

- Oh my god, I need an agent.

- Come on.

- I thought it with that cup of camo milk

- Till wait. T bought you off. Wait a minute. Go ahead.

- Wait a go ahead minute. So

- Not, you were doing very well containing yourself. Although I could

- Feel pressure building this is appeasement. He failed to implement the law on TikTok now for quite some time.

- That is a, I think that's not appeasement, that's enrichment.

- So, but, but the law says he's gotta do things to prevent the Chinese TikTok from being the main source of news in America. And he's not done that. And he has no constitutional authority to do that. And if there's a deal on TikTok, it will be a smelly deal. Sure. It will be a self-dealing disgusting appeasement of China deal. He is not reforming universities. Hold

- On.

- Universities will come to it in a minute. We come to universities in a minute. He's cutting scientific funding.

- Let's to China. We stick to China for

- Now, some of which is wasteful. But when you cut American scientific funding, you are not engaging in China policy properly. So the problem with the Trump administration is there is no China policy.

- There - Are civil, there is, there are two thumbs and then there is waiting to see what might happen or not happen in the first administration. We had McMaster, we had Pompeo, we had Matt Pottinger, we had interagency process. And so we turned around this gigantic ship on China that was going the wrong way. It was a massive achievement.

- Yes.

- And it became a bipartisan consensus.

- Another massive achievement. You might even say consequential

- That chi. Yes. And that was because there was process, not just two thumbs. Now we have no process on purpose because Trump believes that process inhibits him from doing things. And so there are 36 positions staffed in the National Security Council. 36, that's it, out of on purpose.

- Couple hundred

- Out of what used to be 400. 400. But even two 50 was probably too much. But 36 is a signal that he doesn't want anything to do with them. So what happens is you announce things with your thumbs and then who implements, who follows up, who makes the phone calls, who actually implements whatever it is that you're thumbing out into the world? And the answer is nobody. It's bunch of

- The answer. Scott Betson wait. In the case of

- Wait, the treasury exists.

- Treasury is handling much of the Chinese negotiation. But Nick, so there is an answer to that question.

- Lutnick is more involved in cent than a lot of these questions.

- Not on the

- Key Treasury and Lutnick, I'm sorry to say is certifiable. And so, you know, there is no coordinated Trump administration.

- We have, we have

- Just, we have empirical fact.

- We had 400 people in the National Security Council for four years under Biden. They had, we had, we had 400 on Obama. And what did they do?

- Yeah,

- They gave away our

- Agree

- Current foreign policy. When Trump came in in 2000, 20, 25 in January, there was no deterrence. Trump,

- Niall just said, Niall just said you National Security council, the first you get the feeling in the Trump administration, I think I'm quoting you exactly. You get the feeling that in the Trump administration, Taiwan is in play, Victor

- In play in the,

- That he's,

- Donald's gonna give it away. If he gets something else forward it in his mind get t which is not

- Exactly the

- Same as it depends, it depends on the attitude of the Taiwanese. So if you talk to those people, they'll say to themselves, will these people fight like the Korean South Koreans? And would they fight like the Japanese? And if they won't and they think they're going to massage that relationship, then we're not gonna send 11 carrier groups and get 'em sunk.

- What does it tell us that Israel, another small country in a difficult neighborhood spends upwards of 5% of its GDP on Exactly. While Taiwan goes,

- It's two and a half.

- Yeah, it's, it's three under 3% on defense.

- Yes. So you, exactly.

- So why stick upward for these guys?

- That's the Trump, that's the administration's question. If, if Taiwan tomorrow would say, we're gonna emulate what the Europeans claim, they will, but I don't think they will. 5%. And they're gonna do what Japan, Japan's got two new carriers and they're called the same names as the ones at Pearl Harbor, Kaga and Oggi, which tells you what their mindset is. They're not ashamed of that. But I, and they're re-arming and South Korea's re-arming and Australia's re-arming. But

- Taiwan is, and we want them to re-arm.

- Correct. And so I think the Trump administrations, we help those who help themselves. If Taiwan says to Trump, we're gonna spend 5% and we're gonna ally ourselves with the Japanese and the South Koreans and the Australians and the Philippines, and we're gonna resist this, then he's gonna be there. If they say, well, we have a lot of investment, we're all Chinese, it's gonna be inevitable, then he is gonna say, go to it.

- But it's plausible that the outcome of these negotiations, which i I expect will happen next year, is not the appeasement that you suggested. I mean, appeasement would be handing Taiwan over the way. Chamberlain and the Pra house is still standing in

- Munich. They can meet

- There. But, but my my point is you can't assume that that's the outcome. Surely it's preferable to re reset us to 1972 or 1979, the strategic ambiguity that served as well for half a century. We don't want to fight a war over Taiwan. That would be a colossal war. We want the status quo. Let me finish read right, read Ster Rita's book to see what that war would be like. And I think the goal of policy is not appeasement. The goal is detton. To avoid that conflict, the Biden Harris administration came very close to, to causing the Taiwan issue to flare up. It was extraordinary dangerous when Nancy Pelosi made that reckless visit to Taiwan and appeared to be encouraging those elements that favor Taiwanese independence. So I think Daytona is the right term, not appeasement. It'll be appeasement if they hand Taiwan over for nothing. But I don't think that's the plan, Stephen.

- You've gotta ask the Chinese who run that regime, what they think is going on, not ask what the blogosphere thinks is going on here in the United States. The Chinese don't think that this is deton, okay? They think that this is potential capitulation. You can look at the stuff that they're putting out and they're really happy with the way things are going. So it's not a defense of whoever was president before Trump. I forget their names. It's not a defense. It's not a defense of those people. And I I never defended them when they were in an

- Administration. No, but you were defending the, the properly staffed institutions as

- If they're

- Determinative inter, they didn't determine anything under those.

- I want an administration, I want interagency process, which we do not have now deliberately because it's perceived as restraining rather than empowering. But Steve, what if, what if? And so you get bureaucracy

- Works.

- Jensen Wong is running China policy. Jensen, don't Wong think that's true. One person, I don't think that's true. Who's, who's a very rich and smart guy. And God,

- The CEO of Nvidia, I

- Don't think that he's been running, I think

- That's a caricature.

- He got the chips reversal outta Trump without any process and without other people weighing in, including the Pentagon weighing in, including state department weighing in. But this love, nobody knows what

- A lot of people talking about China to Trump, this love of the interagency process, whoever

- Can get through on the phone that's in an

- Agency process. But surely we should judge a president by results. Not whether he abides by the inter-agency process. Look at the results in the Middle East, compare the Biden Harris administration with its bureaucracy and this administration, which as you describe it, has two thumbs and no process, which was more successful in the Middle East. We had an utter disaster two years ago.

- Why a complete disaster? The Biden administration as a point of comparison to the national, how

- About the I and the Obama administration, the

- National security? Is that a point of comparison to

- Make the National Security advisor completely missed? What happened on October 7th? So the point that an article appeared in foreign affairs celebrating the peace that the Biden administration

- Jake sold, said it was the most quiet part of his.

- So - In other words, this was interagency process because of Biden as the point of comparison. Your argument is 12 years, eight years of Biden, four years of Biden are terrible. That doesn't make judge president's by results. You

- Gotta judge results. My own show, I'm having to raise my hand

- For permission

- Here, the fullness of time, the budget. And Niall Ferguson, we'll see quote citing Ferguson's law, some distant ancestor of yours. Scottish. Scottish, of course Ferguson than any great power that spends more on debt service than it does on defense will not long remain a great power. We are now in that territory ourselves. When Ronald Reagan left office, everyone said, oh, good presidency, happy about it. But the way he increased the deficit, which was then 30% of GDP, that debt, debt, excuse me, sorry, the debt was 30% of GDP and now we're at 120% of GDP and growing and Niall and growing and Niall Ferguson and growing considerably. And Niall Ferguson says that unless we take on the entitlement spending, which now represents at least two thirds of the federal budget, unless we take that on the United States simply cannot remain solvent. And Donald Trump replies, oh no, no, no, no. I've been clear throughout my political career. I'm not touching social security, Medicare or Medicaid.

- Is this not a problem? Now we come to the shadow side of the, the Trump era, the shadow side is that the president has never had any intention of stabilizing our public finances. This has always been a problem for political expediency because it's extremely hard to do these things. As Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan discovered, when they tried to make it clear that there needed to be entitlement reform, they were completely trounced politically by Barack Obama. So this is the problem. Up until this point in the show, I've been positive about President Trump in many ways, even in ways that have surprised me. He has done better than I I foresaw he's looking much better than he did in April. But we can't look away from the fact that the United States is in a completely unsustainable fiscal path. This predates Trump, as we've already said. It can be traced right the way back to George W. Bush, but there's no plan to do anything about it. And that's risky because if you are spending more on, on debt interest and more each year relative to your defense budget, you are constrained. And that means that you can't actually modernize your armed forces to the extent necessary to achieve deterrence. I,

- I'm a little bit more worried because I think there is a plan. They do have a plan and I don't think it's gonna work. And their plan is

- What's the plan? What's the plan?

- The plan is that growth. You, you cannot touch entitlements 'cause it'll destroy a Republican administration 'cause they'll demagogue at the left and it's just taboo. And it's also the center of the new national populous party of middle class de-industrialized America. They depend on these entitlements. At least that's the prevailing opinion. So they feel that

- There's the administration,

- Yes, they feel that they're going to get revenue and Niall's right by dereg and that didn't, we saw that with Reagan, didn't, you know, you can't balance a budget just growing your way out because the more money you, but they think, and I'm critical of this so I'm not endorsing it, they think they're going to get 10 to $15 trillion in foreign investment. All these people come over here and they promise 5 trillion. And nobody ever ever calls 'em up a month later and says, where's the check? Exactly. You know, they just promise it in the mail. The second thing is they think they're going to, I think I really like the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergham, but yes, he says, we're worth $200 trillion in assets of federal properties and leases and coal and natural gas. And we could be doing, you know, 25 million barrels, all this. So they're gonna energy out, energy everybody and sell it all over the world. These promised so much natural gas to Japan and Europe, liquified natural gas that people say where's it gonna come from? But they think they're going to literally dig their way out of that hole. Yes, they're going to and they're gonna get tariffs. They're gonna get a trillion dollars now I think it's down to 400. They don't talk about the, the depressed economies if that were to happen. But nevertheless, they think we're gonna get soon half a trillion dollars here from tariffs. We're going to get AI and all crypto and robot, all these new technologies. We're gonna get this $10 trillion in foreign investment. We're gonna get all this energy and we're going to have seven, $8 billion in revenue and we're going to cut the federal workforce, but we won't touch entitlements and therefore it'll work. I don't think it will That stink. Stink. That's what, that's what they think. That's no good. Hope is not a strategy isn't not the old phrase. No, it's not. They have it penciled out. You've talked to them. Sure. They say, here's this money coming in. The treasury secretary didn't even say we were looking at $600 billion.

- That's right. Tariffs, of course the tariff

- Revenue, revenue now is much lower than, it's only in the tens of billions. All

- No, it's, it's been, it's probably going to come at annually. It's close to two 50, certainly hundreds though. The trouble is, it's likely to decay over time as the international economy adjusts to the tars.

- And I think they're not cut not a trillion, but they say they cut $150 billion and the workforce. So issues, I mean issues, they have all worked out. I just don't think issue is the,

- The issue is growth. Scott Besson said he was gonna deliver 3% growth, a 3% of gdp DP deficit. But, and, and I think both of those targets are highly unlikely to be met. And I suspect he knows it. Indeed, the growth rate is trending down as we speak. The labor market is showing size of weakening. And remember, the problem with having a very large deficit and a large debt is that long-term interest rates tend to remain high, even if the Fed is cutting short-term rates. That's bad news for people with mortgages. That

- Is exactly where we are now.

- And the housing situation, 3 billion is another course for concern. So once again, emphasizing the shadow side, there's a sense in which this can go wrong. Not just because of the tariffs, which tend to attract most of the criticism, but because the economy's slowing and with that slowing your, your chance of getting out of jail with 3% growth becomes ever more remote result. The fiscal numbers probably get worse for this to work, they

- Need four and a half or five. I don't think there's gonna, and

- Nobody believes AI is gonna add more than a percent,

- Maybe in the short

- Run,

- $3 billion in interest per day show

- In the growth numbers. Years go to, I

- Got an universities, go ahead. How about the big beautiful fiscal insanity? The one piece of legislation the Trump administration has passed, you know, executive orders are not legislation, they're not permanent. You want to talk about impact and legacy and consequence. Executive orders can be reversed. We saw the idiotic executive orders from that previous guy, whatever his name was. And where are they now? They're in the trash heap of history.

- You mean that person who said, I have a pen and I have a phone

- Where Trotsky, that's a

- Right. Biden just was

- The auto. And so, you know, so

- Was Obama.

- So here we are talking initially about this consequential presidency and now all of a sudden we have one piece of legislation, which was a continuation of fiscal insanity. You know, when I had to go to the voting booth in 2024, I had certain cultural issues in play that Victor has enumerated quite well. But what I had in play from a structural long-term perspective was fiscal insanity or fiscal insanity. Which one did I want? And I, I was gonna get one from the democratic side, which would've been a continuation of their fiscal insanity. Or I was gonna get fiscal insanity from the Republican side, which was a continuation interrupted by the Democratic continuation of fiscal insanity. And so if you don't have the political will two to write the fiscal problem, if you have a kind of hail Mary a hundred yard pass with time running out where nobody actually can catch the ball, that's sort of what I heard you say. The strategy was, I don't know how this is a consequential presidency, but as we speak both except for taking things down in turn, you know, things die by suicide civilizations as torn be said, don't die from external enemies, however significant that is. And so it's, it's more than worrying.

- But we're talking right now when the government of the United States has been shut down by the left because the Affordable Care Act, which they had approved earlier, is now under the Trump budget questioning or suspending this tax incentive. And it's a mild, mild cut. And if you look at the Affordable Act where it was with Trump before he left office the first time, it's about 20% more larger than it was. We have an $8 billion Medi-Cal bill in in that we bailed out California. Yes. So what what the Democrats, I mean it's just, they're shutting the entire government over a very marginal cut. It's not even a cut. It's a, it's an adjustment to these entitlements. So if you said to yourself, well we're going to do what with social security, we're gonna say that people over a hundred thousand dollars have to pay higher taxes on it or whatever. You would have a revolt, they would shut down the government in two

- Seconds. Dean would shut the government down over healthcare. There was a shutdown of the government, a second one over healthcare. This is the third of four shutdowns, significant shutdowns over healthcare. The fourth one was over the border wall, as you'll recall. Yes. So the border wall was the exception. But the, so the entitlement problem, let's, let's imagine that I am not pro democratic party.

- We're not talking about democratic

- Party since I'm not a member of that party. Let's imagine I'm not pro democratic party, but let's imagine that I'm pro-America, this is the 250th anniversary of this great republic. And if I'm pro-America, I'm looking for solutions.

- Right? But

- I'm looking for university reform, not university punishment. I'm looking for entitlement reform. Not a war on Twitter or on blue sky

- Or what would, what would you, what would problem would you propose for them to accept the, the fiscal problem, as we've said, predates Trump and it's bipartisan. So yes, clearly here, all his consequential nature is not that he's going to achieve written and branch fiscal reform. The question I think is number one, does he get the better of the AEs of authoritarians and in particular China that we don't know yet. It may be that he does. 'cause remember we've talked about America's problems, the fiscal problems of America. Lemme tell you about China's fiscal problems. You, you know what? The deficit is even larger in China. If you look at local government debt, the economic problems of China are compounded by far worse demographic trends. Their population likely halves between now and the end of the century. So China has its own problems. Russia's problems are even greater. Iran, the regime is in the brink of collapse. North Korea. It's kind of a rounding error. So the consequential nature of this presidency here, I agree with you. We'll only be clear when we know the outcome of Cold War ii. When we know who wins. If China wins, then we'll look back and say President Trump, for all his flare on social media had no solution to the strategic threat that he himself identified. But if as happened in the 1980s, a president reviled by the left who presided over a growing deficit nevertheless emerges as the winner of the Cold War, he, you're a good consequence

- For resident. He built the military, he military, he started under Carter and he re look at the military. That when you were writing those speeches, where is that on the horizon? We got nothing on the horizon except reduction of our scientific funding.

- Oh, wait,

- Wait, wait,

- Wait. When he came, wait, wait, wait, wait. Come on. When he came into office, we were told that we had 45,000 shortfall. It was gonna be permanent because people are fat. Now they

- 45,000 shortfall in the army

- And they are in the military,

- Military general.

- We were told that there's gangs that they use, drugs that they don't wanna fight. All of a sudden we've had record, every branch of the military has met all of their quotas in nine months. Now, big shift. It's the first time the Army has met its quota big in over a decade shift. All of a sudden we're told you cannot question lock general dynamics, Northrop, Raytheon, they're the big suppliers, and all of a sudden it's all this and or all these small people with off the shelf stuff and they're really recalibrating

- And ask the people who are at the cutting edge of defense technology, who did they want to be? President? Kamala Harris, Donald Trump. That is a short conversation. In fact, one of the major reasons, and you know this Steve, that people in this part of the world in Silicon Valley switched from Democrat to to Republican was because they saw where the Biden administration was going with AI regulation. And they realized it was a disaster waiting to happen.

- So I think you can't do this every time where Trump is not doing well, but hey, look what Biden did. Well that was the, the choice what Obama did. That was the choice. It's not a choice. That means you have to say that we are on a better trajectory just because I think the other side,

- Let's be clear, we are clearly on a better

- Trajectory. Suicidal

- Is now, if Kamala Harris had somehow won the 2024 election, it's just if you, if you need viewers to just to kind of get a reality check, just run the counterfactual in your mind. How would the United States be doing today if Kamala Harris were commander in chief president of the United States? She's obliged us by publishing absolutely atrocious memoir to reminders of her many defects as a human being. So let's just be relieved. You can criticize Trump and I have on this show, he has not addressed the fiscal problem. There are ways in which the administration is poorly run, but when the choice was between that and Kamala Harris, I don't think the, the United States didn't have a choice. Choice. There was no alternative. You

- Had to have choice. We, we, we have to cons, history, consequences, the way trends are going globally. America's two 50 at America. You're talking about an election I've lived through, I don't know how many elections in this country, just about as many as Victor has, although maybe he's got me on one.

- I think so.

- I don't think people will look

- Back on the 21st, but universities, but I, I cannot have the three of you here election and not at least I'll go one round on universities. Two quotations. Christopher Eisgruber, president of Princeton. Oh Princeton. The Trump Administration. Your old friend. The Trump administration is creating, quote, the greatest threat to American universities since the Red scare of the 1950s. Venture capitalist Mark Andreessen noting that the federal government subsidizes universities through student loans, research funding and tax exemptions. Quote, American universities have become a self-governing cartel. They do exactly what cartels do. They're stagnating and going crazy in spectacular ways. Close quote Victor, go first. All in the all

- Mr. Eisgruberuer had to do. And these elite college presidents is say the following, get the go to the faculty senate and say, you know what? We have the lowest popularity in history. 26% of the public have confidence in higher True. And we have 70 to 80% A's now and people in Silicon Valley question among other employers, whether the graduates say from Stanford are better than Georgia Tech or Southern, they're not in certain areas. So he goes to the faculty senate, the college president and says, you know what, we've been kind of gouging in the federal government. Let's just say we're gonna live within 15 to 20% overhead. And you know the Supreme Court

- Instead of 40, 50, 60. Yeah. And

- The Supreme Court said, you know, in 2023, we can't use race. And we've been breaking that law. We have racial grad graduations, we have, we call 'em theme houses, but they're segregated dorms and we're breaking that. So we're not gonna do that. And here at Stanford we chased out a federal judge and hijacked his lecture and we, we can't do that. And we had people out here that were supposed to have one night protesting for Hamas and they were there for four months and they trashed the pr. So we can't ha, we have to have freedom of speech. And he went down almost everything in that. And then he said this, and I have to do all this because this awful Trump is making me do it. But really he's saying, take Trump out of the question. And these things are the only things that are gonna restore our, so it's not what has to be done, it's who's making the people do it. If it came organically from these presidents and said Stanford and Yale has no reputation, 80%, you know, we dropped the SAT for four years. We're these gut studies courses, we have no freedom of speech. We're gouging the federal government. The tuition goes up higher than the rate of inflation. We've got $1.7 trillion in federal debt. If they just said that and I'm going to do the following with your help fa and then he just took the Trump blueprint, you'd have no thing. So the issue was really Trump interfering and saying if you take a federal dollar, unlike Hillsdale College, then I can tell you how to spend it. If you want to tell me f you then go do what Hillsdale does. And they say, we kept, we can't, we can't do what Hillsdale does. We're a major international global university. So that's what it is. Stephen and then Niall go,

- The threat to American universities is leadership at American universities. Victor is a hundred percent correct. That doesn't justify Trump's approach of extortion, blackmail, misuse of federal power. He's very good at identifying problems. But I need solutions. The problems are real, but where are the solutions? So Victor is right, they have to come from the universities themselves. Absolutely. And they haven't come from the universities themselves. And so Trump is identifying a very real problem that universities must address. 'cause Trump, again, it doesn't intend to fix these things and is not gonna fix them. He's just having a blast. But at the same time, America's universities are some of our absolute biggest assets. Why are 300,000 Chinese here? Because American universities are a waste of time. Why are there 1.1 million foreign students here? Because American universities are a waste of time. No, because they're some of the biggest assets that any power has ever seen in history. I want reform, not destruction. I want better leadership. I want just mediocre leadership. I don't even need to have outstanding generational talent in leadership. We have had a turnaround here at Stanford. I'm impressed with the direction of the current leadership here. And I think John Levin, our president, president Levin, is doing the right thing. I spent 33 years at Princeton University, a life of Jesus. And I understand that leadership well. And and, and I support Victor's critique. Of course I did 33 years life of Jesus. I did leave just before crucifixion. And the reason was I was very doubtful about resurrection on the third day once I was crucified. So, and I luckily landed here on my feet and now I have these amazing colleagues here and, but what's the solution? Where are solutions? I don't want to hear about the problems only, I don't want to hear Trump applying greater pressure, more pressure, this pressure. They make concessions. He doesn't believe the concessions are real. They get in this tit for tat escalation. I want to have a US get to a better place. If they're violating the law, they need to be punished for that. If they're admitting on the basis of race, that needs to be punished. If there's some fat in the science labs, that needs to be cut out. But fundamental science is very, very expensive.

- Okay?

- And that expense does not come from private sector alone. And it doesn't come from tuition money. If Hillsdale had 15, $300 million science labs, it would not be able to sell fund. And so you wanna do big science because you wanna be a serious country and anywhere you have to compete, not just with China, you need to have big money in science run properly.

- Okay,

- I need that.

- Where is that coming from? I observe, I make one observation in flip bit to Niall. I observe that although we could use reform in the universities and the leadership has to come from, it is only now happening because of one reason. Donald Trump has been screwed and wonder button because we put a gunner.

- The alumni also the alumni shows to Harvard alumni. They're also an important pressure.

- Yes. But only now that Donald, you are saying Steve, is that this could magically happen by itself. But the reality is that if Kamala Harris had been elected, none of this would be happening. On the contrary,

- You got a problem with Kamala Harris here.

- Yes, there was a problem. And she was

- A terrible, didn't fight for her.

- She was a terrible candidate. But my point is that none of this would be happening.

- Yeah.

- Not here, not at Harvard. If it weren't for the pressure that President Trump has exerted these institutions, now what offends you is the disruptive way that President Trump behaves. But if an institution is effectively a wholly owned affiliate of the Democratic Party, what else is he gonna do? The deep state itself go to Washington. Who, how many people in Washington DC voted for Donald Trump? Hardly any. Like Harvard. The federal government is a owned affiliate of the Democratic Party. Look at the, look at the opinion surveys of an institution like Stanford or Harvard. The tiny number of professors who are Republicans. The overwhelming support for democratic or progressive policies. So Trump has to do something because the instinctive tendency within the, in these institutions is not to change. It's to carry on engaging in racial discrimination. In admission they would've done it. Correct. It's the trash meritocracy is to, that's the reality. So you may not like the methods, but I'm struggling to imagine what else would get through to a place like Harper. Thought. Harper, for 12

- Years he's changed. And

- I, I was, no, let me finish. Tell me the story you had your say. I watched a great university destroy itself by trashing meritocracy, by adopting instead the whole plethora of discrimination that they called diversity, equity, and inclusion. I saw the corruption in their admission system and I watched the standard slide. I watched the politicization of the humanities departments a relentless politicization, which you also observed. 'cause it happened at Princeton two and it happened here. Now what was gonna stop that? Were the professors gonna wake up one day and say, oh we've been so wicked. We haven't stayed true to the principles of a university. No, that was never gonna happen. Something had to shock this country's universities into returning to the fundamental principles of how a university should be run. In the same way that you have to shock the federal bureaucracy into changing its ways. 'cause it had in inhaled the DEI doctrine just as much. So when President Trump is being disruptive, you know, polite, professorial types say how shocking, but what else would've worked? What else would we

- Change these institutions? And disruptive

- Is

- Quite the euphemism

- You said. So say, lemme tell you this. Can I say one last thing very quickly? Go ahead. This what I was saying was not abstract. I taught in the California state University system

- Cal State Fresno for many

- Years. Yes. The populous middle rung, not uc. And I taught 21 years. When I came in 84, I had 10 authors and introduction to Western humanities assigned in 2004. I was down to two. Two meaning? Meaning I couldn't assign three because they couldn't finish the work.

- Yes.

- And I was told that I was giving too many, I was giving too many C's. They should have been D's and F's.

- You were asking too much of your students.

- Yes, and my grades had inflated. And then when I would give particular students an F, I would get a call from a person. I won't mention the name, but they came from a center for, or a program for, and you named DEI. It was a prototype saying to me, this person was a very nice person. This person is the first person in their family, this person. And if you do this, you'll ruin a life. Exactly. And I said, I've got about 15 calls from you. And there wasn't the football coach. They did that a little bit. But my point I'm getting is, when you talk about the excellence of the university, it's not static. It started here and it goes here when I, I'll say one last thing and esoteric field like classics. I would hire, I hired nine classics professors over 21 years. I finally asked them, could you please when you come translate a page from Caesar and a page from Lius, which are the easiest Greek and Latin. These were from the elite universities. And the final candidate that put me over the edge says, if you ask me to do that, I'm gonna complain to the American Philological Association that you're harassing me. And they could not read it. They could not read.

- They couldn't read Caesar.

- No. And if you look at most of classics departments today in the United States, not most, but they what they're turning out. And they're not even requiring at some of the best universities, Greek as a required language in classic. So when you say that we have these great, we do, and we started up here and we're down to here and everybody's down here below us, and you're right. But we're on a trajectory as Niall is afraid of that we're gonna be right at their level.

- It's all diagnosis and not enough solutions for me. So let me tell you a story, Stephen.

- We got five could please.

- No, no, no. I had cancer.

- You

- And I had three different cancers and I'm alive today. Why? Because my doctors had MDs from Trump University or because my doctors had MDs from Harvard all during the DEI era. Those Federalist Society members are conservative attorneys, judges, professors of law. Do they have jds from Trump University or do they have jds from Harvard University? They have them from Harvard University. But Steve,

- Nobody's arguing that Harvard should be abolished.

- That you're giving performance and you're giving me stories about nonsense that I've spent 40 years fighting and I'm asking for solutions because we have the greatest biomedical establishment in the history of the universe. And I don't want them to be attacked because of the very diagnosis that I share with you and which I've experienced firsthand. You don't have to tell me about culture wars and the hard left at universities and and imposing orthodoxy. I mean, I've spent 40 years studying communism. So I know the subject I'm asking for how do we get to a better place with these institutions. We

- Just said, we just said some outside inanimate force or like Shane, the gunslinger came in and he said, I have a certain methodology that it's abhorrent to you, but it will be a catalyst. And then he, he he wrote off and there was change. If the university president had just swallowed their pride and ego and narcissism and said, these were my ideas and I opposed Donald Trump. And then just quietly implemented it, we would have

- Last, last question, 1979, we go from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to 1989, the Berlin Wall falls. And in that decade, in between just one decade, we undergo a renewal in this country. Take that then. We have this from Charles Murray. America in 1789 was unique geographically in the characteristics of a self-selected population and position at the Apogee of Scottish Enlightenment. The creation of a limited government was a one-time event, never to be repeated. What we have seen over the last 60 years is not a setback from which the American experiment can recover, but a downward spiral that was inevitable. And I close with this Cynthia Ozi, the 97-year-old novelist. This is a woman who lived through the depression, the second World war, who saw the horrors of the Holocaust as the news reels came in. And here she says, this is a good, this is a recent interview. This is a good country. It's a great country. And now it's disintegrating. Next July we celebrate the 250th anniversary, the Declaration of Independence. Is this project winding down or is there scope for renewal? Brief answers, Victor.

- I think we're in, in the deer and we're climbing out of it. We've had this in 1861. We had it in 1932. We had it in 1939. I mean, when we, the war started, we had the 17th largest military army. Portugal was larger than ours. And when we finished five years later, we had a larger Navy and air force than every belligerent put together and A GDP that was bigger than all of theirs. So we can recover. Stephen. I see, I see signs that were on the upward. Stephen,

- I sign on to what Victor just said, and I'm proud to be his colleague. And I think that America has more than enough potential for renewal, but renewal is not an automatic thing that's gonna happen. It's a matter of citizenship, as Victor has written very eloquently. We are America, so it renews either because we help renew it or we watch it go down because we don't understand and appreciate our own citizenship and agency.

- That's true, Sir Niall Ferguson. I'm the person is the final word. I'm the only person. Well, I'm the only person at this table who volunteered to be an American. Yes. And so in a sense, the stakes are higher for me. You know, my concern is not the quality of the cancer treatment that you received. It's the quality of the cancer treatment 40 years from now. And that seems to me to be the argument for disruptive challenges to a status quo that was rotten. If Americans stop worrying about their republic, if they be complete complacent, then I'm worried. The great thing about this country is for 249 years, people have been worrying that the Republic can't hold that we're Rome. And that's the right worry to have. As long as we have that worry and keep asking ourselves, can we keep the republic? And as long as the Constitution continues to function with its separation of powers, the stroke of genius, at the heart of its success, be fine on this. I think the three of us agree.

- God bless America, Stephen Kotkin, Victor Davis Hanson and Niall Ferguson. Thank you.

- Thank you. And Peter Bins, you're welcome. Thank you

- For Uncommon Knowledge and the Hoover Institution. I'm Peter Robinson.