← GoodFellows: Conversations on Economics, History & Geopolitics
GoodFellows: Conversations on Economics, History & Geopolitics
Turning Points: Kyiv, Kirk, Kimmel, and the Sundance Kid | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution
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- [00:00]
H.R. McMaster
Strong men built the west and won.
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John Cochran
The wars and built the building that.
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H.R. McMaster
We'Re in right now. And without strong men, then you all.
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John Cochran
Of a sudden see civilization unfold upon itself.
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H.R. McMaster
And we're seeing that happen in real time.
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Bill Whelan
It's Friday, September 19, 2025. And welcome back to Goodfellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast examining social, economic, political, political and geopolitical concerns. I'm Bill Whelan, I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow. I'll be your moderator today. Looking forward to a spirited conversation with the three gentlemen we jokingly refer to as our good fellows. That would be of course, the historian Sir Neil Ferguson, the economist John Cochran, and former presidential National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. mcMaster. Neil, John and H.R. are Hoover Senior Fellows. So, gentlemen, you've all been busy, even busier by your normally busy standards. It's the last time we convened, the three of you actually met in London not too long ago on some Hoover business. If I can get the travel straight here, then I think John and HR Peeled off and went to Berlin. After that, Neil, meanwhile, headed to Kyiv for his for I believe, a security conference. Neil, if I'm not mistaken. Let's start with Kyiv. Neil. So not the first time you've been to that country since the war broke out, now 43 months ago, incredibly enough. I'm curious, Neil, as to what has changed at all since the last time you were there.
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Neil Ferguson
This is my fourth visit to Kyiv in wartime. I'd been there many times before, but the striking thing was that the war is so much more a part of life in the capital city than it was previously because this year has seen a huge escalation in Russian airstrikes on all Ukrainian cities, but including Kyiv. And these are drone strikes, but also strikes with cruise missiles. They're now happening pretty much nightly. I know this because you have to download an app to warn you of air raids. Rather disconcertingly, the air raid warning went off when I was on stage in mid panel discussion. I'm glad to say that there wasn't a strike, but there had been a cruise missile strike not far from the hotel where I was staying, not long before I paid a visit to that site. And it's very sobering, really sobering to see an entire apartment building taken out by a missile. Not by accident, of course, because these things are capable of accurate targeting. And I think 23 Ukrainian men, women and children died in that one strike. So it's a different atmosphere from the atmosphere early on in the war. I can remember back in 2022, the time I went there, which was around the same time of year, early September. At that point, the Ukrainians were cockahoop because the Russian army was in flight from Kharkiv and Kherson. The mood is much more somber in Kyiv today.
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Bill Whelan
John, I know you have a lot of questions, including one of tactics. Why the Russians bombed civilian populations rather than industrial sites.
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John Cochran
Well, yes, I've got questions for Neil, which hopefully means I'll be a little shorter than usual. Yes. Why are they bombing apartment buildings? Do they not know how to target military things? Are the Ukrainians maybe saving their defenses for important targets? We all know that that doesn't work. Seems strange what's going on with Poland and sending drones over Poland. I'll be curious to both of your reactions to that. Why are we doing so little about it? We talked about. So Neil was pretty militarily pessimistic in. In his great articles summarizing Kyiv. But there's some economic pessimism, too. Blowing up refineries feels great, but we know that substitution is possible. In the end, Russia could export crude oil and import gas. It's important to do sanctions, but it's. Will the war really be won by that sort of thing? And last, where's the deal? I think what the west is aiming for is a North Korea, South Korea, China, Taiwan, East Germany, West Germany. Hopefully not North Vietnam, South Vietnam, let's lay off. And then Ukraine can join us and become prosperous, and the other side can rot until Vladimir goes on to his reward. But the other side does not even think about that as a deal. So talking of a deal seems premature. Okay, there's four questions. Go for it, guys.
- [04:32]
Neil Ferguson
Well, number one, they are deliberately attacking civilian targets and they're doing it almost nightly. And that's a little counterintuitive if you know the literature on strategic bombing in World War II which says that it didn't work, that civilian morale wasn't damaged, not by the blitz when Germany was bombing England, and not by the bombing of Germany by the Royal Air Force and the US Air Force later in the war. But, you know, I do think it affects morale. In 2025, a young woman told me of her experience when she couldn't get into the air raid shelter and there were explosions going on not far from her. She said she's still affected by it months later. I think somehow there's a difference. There's a difference in the sense that I think society is different in the 2000s from the 1940s. There's a difference in the sense that these missiles are precision missiles that people say, well, if you hear the explosion, you're okay, because if you don't hear it, you're not.
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John Cochran
So.
- [05:51]
Neil Ferguson
So that makes a difference compared with the pretty indiscriminate bombing that characterized World War II. So I think there's a determined Russian effort to undermine Ukrainian morale, and it's had an effect in the sense that I think the mood is somber and indeed grim. On the other hand, I saw no sign that Ukrainians were willing to fold. They want the war to end, that's clear. They want there to be an end to this war, but they don't want to be on Putin's terms. So in that sense, it's not working. I think that was question one. Question two. Was that targeting the, the Ukrainians, targeting the oil facilities, John?
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John Cochran
Yeah, is that. It feels good, but is that going to work or can the Russians substitute their way around it? Which is.
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Neil Ferguson
You answered the question.
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John Cochran
You were pessimistic militarily. And I was wondering if the economic alternative is, is actually realistic.
- [06:44]
Neil Ferguson
Look, it's, it's, it's better than nothing. And it's good that Ukraine has the capacity to carry out deep strikes on, on Russian infrastructure as well as military sites which they, they, they've hit. Is it going to decide the outcome? No, because it's simply not on a large enough scale. And as you say, if you blow up a refinery, the Russians can still ship the crude. So this isn't going to decide the war in Ukraine's favor, sadly. But I think if one takes a step back, and I'd be interested to get HR's views on this, what I'm struck by, and I spent a lot of time talking to people about this, is the extent to which the war really has changed in its character. It's a drone war now. Artillery, armor, infantry, all play a much smaller role. The front line is essentially a kind of 20 to 25 kilometer death strip in which there are drones in the air. And if you hear the drone, you're dead. And so it's a very, very different war from the one at the beginning or even a year ago, because there's been such a massive ramping up in production of drones on both sides. So in some ways I came away thinking that's actually quite good, Good news for Ukraine, because a war of men is a war. It's really hard for Ukraine to win because they're just outnumbered, they're outmanned, they can't mass recruit, much less conscript on the scale that the Russians can with their larger population, but they can hold their own in a drone war because they have a technological edge. They're just qualitatively clearly superior. The Russians can win quantitatively, so they're churning out these shahid drones, but they can't actually compete at the level of quality. And it's now clear that Ukraine has the most advanced drone defense industry in the world. So that's the, the kind of silver lining which means that I'm less worried that they're going to collapse and lose than I, I was before my trip. I think there's great resolve and there's smarts, there's technological sophistication on, on Ukraine's side, so they can hold out. People talked about a drone wall being built almost on a permanent basis to deter Russia from further advances. So I think that's, that's the more encouraging military news. Now, of course, I've forgotten question three and four, but in any case, I want to throw it to HR for some military expertise.
- [09:12]
H.R. McMaster
Yeah. Hey, Neil, I mean, you were just there talking to Ukrainians who were in the fight. And I had the opportunity to talk to a number of Ukrainian veterans in London while we were there. And I think you accurately described the way that the conflict has evolved on the battlefield. And essentially neither side can gain really a high degree of mobility and the ability to sustain an offensive operations, an offensive operation. Ukrainians have substituted drones for manpower, but it's even difficult for them to sustain the front with just the few soldiers that you need, relatively few soldiers over wide areas to orchestrate that fight against these Russian limited offensives. But on the Russian side, they can't sustain those offensives, much like, and I've mentioned this before, you know, the Ludendorff offensives in 1918, I mean they can get a breakthrough here and there, but they can't sustain it. And what you're seeing today and yesterday are some very serious, very successful Ukrainian local counterattacks against Russians that now find themselves cut off in a salient and they're just going to be destroyed piecemeal by Ukrainian drones. The most recent technological innovation are the extended length of the FPV or first person view drones. One person controlling one drone. Now that range extended to 30 kilometers. So the no man's land is extended. And if you want to do logistics, resupply, ammunition, food, fuel, if you have to do casual evacuation, you've got to do that over contested space. Now is that going to remain the same for the next year? I don't think so because you've already alluded to this too, Neil, these defenses for these drones are improving. But then the next iteration is going to be swarm drones, computing power at the edge, mesh communications capabilities and machine learning capabilities that will allow people controllers to go from one to controlling many and to give missions to these drones. Now that these, this new form of warfare has not replaced the old, it's been grafted on the old, you know, which is why it looks a hell of a lot like World War I. And I think, again, the main problem is going to be at the operational, strategic level of war really is how do you blind your enemy? How do you blind your enemy so you can restore mobility, so you can, you can conduct a sustained offensive operations and more effective defense. But hey, on, on the, on the extension of the war, you know, to Poland and to Romania with these drones, hey, this fits the pattern for Vladimir Putin. This is what he does, is he escalates and escalates and it will not stop until he is stopped. And what that's going to entail is to impose costs on Putin to go far beyond the costs that he factors in when he decides to send, you know, these drones to Poland or something. So I think, you know, that's what's next. Or else this will be normalized, right? This will be like kind of the new normal. And, and there are a whole series of actions that, that I guess I mentioned them in a column on history we don't know, but I really drew on, on an essay by, by Marshall Billingsley, with whom I'd served in the first Trump administration. He just laid out eight things we should do right now, you know, to put more pressure on, on Putin. And then, and then I think that's when the strikes on the refineries are really significant in combination, right, with these other actions to then convince Vladimir Putin, hey, you can't, you can't continue this war at an acceptable cost. And now's the time to take these actions. And I, and I hope that the President comes to that conclusion. I know Europeans are coming to that conclusion, so we'll see.
- [12:52]
Bill Whelan
So I hate to jump in here, guys, but we have a very tight show today, so we have to wrap up this segment. Let's act it this way, Neil. The fighting is going to wind down shortly in Ukraine when the winter kicks in, and then springtime, it picks up again in the interim when the finding is not as intense as it is right now. Neil, what are you looking for? What developments, if any, should we look for?
- [13:10]
Neil Ferguson
Well, I don't know how much drones really are affected by the changing season. So that's one thing to bear in mind. It's not necessarily going to be hugely diminished by winter. I think what I came away from Kyiv thinking the most was that this is now Europe's war because the United States is no longer supplying aid to Ukraine, it's selling weapons to Ukraine, but that's different from sending them gratis as aid. And the Europeans now have to face the reality that only with European support can Ukraine prevail. And that means that European rearment has to not only be stepped up, that's happening fiscally, but I'm not sure just how fast it's happening on the ground, in factories. And crucially, that rearmament has to be for the war of the future, not the war of the past. And a huge problem will arise if Europeans spend their money on the equipment that they really wanted 10, 20, 30 years ago, but couldn't have. Now can have, but is not actually crucial from Ukraine's point of view. So it's Europe's war and Europe has to figure out how exactly it can give Ukraine victory. Because a draw, a tie isn't a very appetizing prospect that could go on and on and on, the way things look today.
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Bill Whelan
Gentlemen, anything you want to add?
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H.R. McMaster
Hey, Bill, can I mention a great essay by our colleague Michael Berstrom on the decline of the Russian oil sector? He said that Russia is over as an energy superpower. It's a fantastic essay.
- [14:42]
Bill Whelan
Okay, thank you, HR Onto our second topic, and that is the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk in the aftermath, which may cost the career of one late night television host on American television. Um, let's take it from this angle. So the three of you would have been in Europe at the time that Kirk was murdered. So Neil, maybe you can explain the significance of this to a non American audience. In other words, here in the US We've had this conversation for a week now about what it all means. But if you were explaining this, Neil, to somebody in the uk, somebody on the continent, as to what this says about America and American culture, what would you say?
- [15:17]
Neil Ferguson
The news broke while we were at dinner in London with group of guests from UK politics and media. And I think it affected all of us, including those who don't spend much time in the U.S. i knew Charlie Kirk, spent time with him earlier this year in Los Angeles, was deeply impressed by his sincerity and commitment to free speech as a way of changing minds. So I was deeply rattled, shocked and despondent at the news. But I was struck by the fact that everybody around that table realized that this was a terrible moment in modern American political history, a terrible moment in the sense that it's another step down that road of political violence that we've really been going down maybe since 2020. We, after all, only narrowly avoided President Trump suffering this fate in Butler, Pennsylvania. So from a European or British vantage point, it was just another example of a disturbing tendency for the United States to revert to patterns of political violence that we thought belonged to the past. I'm thinking here not just of 1968, but the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. So, yeah, I think everybody in Europe, even if they'd never heard of Charlie Kirk or only vaguely heard of him, understood that this was a very significant moment indeed.
- [17:04]
H.R. McMaster
Well, you know what I'm concerned about, beyond just our concern for him, his family is, is a concern that, that this indicates weakness to our adversaries. So I think this kind of political violence, of course, is terrible from a domestic perspective and our own psyches and our common ideas, Americans, but it communicates weakness to our adversaries as well. And in, in this recent column on history, we don't know, I just alluded to Wang Huning, you know, who was always in the ear of Xi Jinping and who wrote in 1991 book called America Against America, in which he predicted that we were going to tear ourselves down and then that would allow China to be the kind of the global superpower. So I, I, I'm concerned about that as well. You know, that, that, you know, that this, this sort of cycle of violence, you know, this political violence communicates lack of confidence in our, in our, in our system and our political institutions and processes. And this is what our adversaries want. And actually they fomented. I think it's really interesting and I think our viewers should pay attention to this, is how China, Russia and Iran in particular, tried to bend this assassination in the direction of their interests and to drive Americans further apart from one another. So maybe we can draw some inspiration from that and come together for meaningful, respectful discussions about our future and start maybe with what we can agree on and how we can work together.
- [18:35]
John Cochran
I would add a particular tragedy is, of course, what Charlie Kirk stood for, is respectful, peaceful, acrimonious, but respectful and peaceful dialogue in place of political violence. Thank goodness the shooter was once again an individual nutcase and not a member of some organization which would have made life much, much worse. But of course, the, the normal thing one is supposed to do here is if anybody speaks publicly, you say, this is terrible. We need to all talk to each other respectfully. And there was instead an outpouring, primarily from the left this time of great, how wonderful that this guy got it. He deserved it. Which is very revealing of. I think that that is the, the underlying trend. That is the one that's most worrisome now. But on the other hand, the healthy part is, is that that was not embraced. And many of those people lost their jobs. Thank God they didn't have, you know, the federal government, we'll get to that question, censoring them. But polite society said, no, you don't act this way. So revealing of a. Of a deep current that the Luigi la Mangione current that, that people celebrate this kind of violence, but also revealing that that is is still. That attitude is still completely out of the mainstream of left and right in.
- [20:05]
Bill Whelan
The U.S. now, somebody who did speak up and may pay a price for this is the American television host Jimmy Kimmel, who is right now has been definitely suspended, in the words of his network, for new show after he said the following.
- [20:17]
H.R. McMaster
Some new lows over the weekend with.
- [20:19]
John Cochran
The MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize.
- [20:22]
Neil Ferguson
This kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as.
- [20:24]
John Cochran
Anything other than one of them and.
- [20:26]
H.R. McMaster
Doing everything they can to score political points from it.
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Bill Whelan
What happened after he said that was ABC affiliates said they wanted to drop his show. And then the head of the fcc, the Federal Communications Commission, weighed in and saying, basically, if ABC didn't do anything about this, the FCC might do something about it. Pretty ominous words. I'm going to get John's thoughts on the fcc. But Neil, so Jimmy Kimmel may be out of a job for saying words on tv. Should he be canceled? Would you call this cancel culture? Or is this maybe something different? Maybe we could call suspension culture?
- [20:55]
Neil Ferguson
Well, obviously it would be a bitter irony if the murderer of Charlie Kirk, who passionately believed in free speech, were to furnish a pretext for free speech violations by government agencies. And we should say that right out. I was also disturbed by other statements by officials that implied that there was such a thing as hate speech, which somehow was not protected by the First Amendment, which is simply not the case. So that's the general point, but there's a kind of specific point. What Kimmel was doing was what a number of people tried to do in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, which was to claim that the murderer was on the right, was part of the, quote, MAGA crowd, which was completely baseless. And indeed, it rapidly became Apparent that although the young man who committed the crime came from a conservative family, he himself had drifted to the radical left and indeed may have been motivated. It's not yet clear, may have been motivated by a kind of transgender, romantic entanglement. So the problem with what Kimmel did was that it was an entirely false political claim, and that seems to me worthy of condemnation in an atmosphere like the one we find ourselves in. He was one of a great many people who made this argument, and polling revealed a really large number of people started to believe it. Well, that's a problem, because if we're not correctly identifying what prompts violence of the sort that Charlie Kirk's death illustrated, then we're not going to get anywhere close to solving the problem. And as John pointed out, the case of Luigi Mandioni illustrates that there is now an extremely toxic strain of political violence and the celebration of political violence on the far left in the United States. And we need to clearly identify that reality. It's a sad state of affairs when somebody who at least used to have a large TV audience can completely misinform the public. And the journalist who has consistently argued that there is a problem of this sort, Andine Goh, has himself had to endure violence and intimidation. And I. I just want to single out Andy's work here, because if anybody had a kind of good read and a. An insightful read on the motivations behind Charlie Kirk's death, it was Andy Ngo. And, you know, I. I think that's worth saying at a time when people like Jimmy Kimmel are simply misrepresenting what's happening.
- [24:01]
Bill Whelan
So, Sean Cochrane, how long before we get a grumpy columnist column on the need to abolish the Federal Communications Committee? Maybe explain what the FCC does. Seem to me it is a vestige of the New deal. It's over 90 years old.
- [24:12]
John Cochran
Yeah, I mean, the sad thing is there's so much hypocrisy all around. Remember, cancel culture and the Twitter files and so forth. I wish the Democrats had a leg to stand on with their sudden discovery of the wonders of the First Amendment. We do have to distinguish between, you know, private and government. Government shutting you up is the violation of First Amendment, unpleasant as it is private people firing you for it is not illegal. Yeah, the problem is when the government has the power, it's going to use it. And the government is political. And this is not just about. The FCC does regulate content and had since 1934. And it's not just about explicitly saying, you may not say X. They Also get to approve your mergers. So you, and this is merger approval. Any, any intellectual basis of antitrust has gone out long ago. You need to curry favor. So merely we're unhappy is going to be very difficult. And that's why it's not just explicit regulation. It's this kind of political cronyism, political favoritism that is going through Russia. What's the answer? Abolish the fcc, Abolish the ftc. The government has this power. The government is going to use it. And more broadly, we are in an era, unfortunately, of escalating tit for tat. You know, I bring brass knuckles to a bar, and next time you bring a knife and next time I bring a gun. And that's the way it's going in many areas. You know, the use of the Department of Justice for lawfare, for example. I hoped we would stop that, but we're not. So at what point do we say enough is enough? I want to go back to a limited government that doesn't do this kind of thing, rather than, oh, that's handy. I'll, I'll take that and use it in my way next time. Because believe me, President Newsom is going to look at these, look at these precedents and say, oh, that, that's handy.
- [26:07]
Bill Whelan
There's one other angle here, gentlemen, and that is institutional decline slash institutional drift. And HR here I turn to you. You guys all are warriors in this field. You write for alternative media. And Neil has taken upon himself to create a university in Texas as an alternative to academic bias. But late night television in America at least, has fallen pretty to this. And Neil, I think one of the problems America has, it doesn't have a Graham nor show. There is no simple entertainment show where people sit on a red couch and just make light of things. Late nights become much too political. But hr, you see this in this. Both the audience on Late Night, Neil mentioned declining audiences. Kimmel's show gets about 100 to 200,000 people in the 18 to 47 demographic is what you need advertising. We get more people watching this show than he does on national television. That tells you about that. But it also has drifted to the left. HR and you know this personally. You want to, you want to tell us about that?
- [26:56]
H.R. McMaster
Yeah. Well, there is kind of an orthodoxy now, you know, that has gripped, you know, even comedians. Right. You should be, you know, sort of more insulated to it. And, and when, when, when my book At War with Ourselves came out, my publicist said, hey, you know, the Stephen Colbert show said, you could Come on. But if you, come on, you have to condemn President Trump and recommend that nobody vote for him. And, and I said, well, I'm, I'm not going to do that, you know, so, so that's an easy choice. But I think that, you know, I don't know if it was just a producer or if it was Stephen Colbert directly, but, you know, there has been this orthodoxy that has gripped, you know, late night television. So many of these monologues, honestly, I mean, the ones, the few that I do see, they're just like diatribes. They're not, they're not funny, you know, and which might be why kind of the ratings are going down, you know, so, yeah, I worry about that. But then I also worry about the government. We don't want our, you know, the Trump administration to crack down on media, right? The, the correction to this is bad ratings, right? It's, it's sort of people saying enough of that, you know, and, and choosing to, to go to other media, like what Barry Weiss did, for example, with, with the Free Press. So, and anyway, I, I think the market should correct for it rather than the US Government.
- [28:11]
John Cochran
Competition is the salve for all wounds. Remember, the FCC was put into place to regulate radio when there was like two national networks and then there was three national TV networks. There's plenty of room for competition now. We do not need the government to, to manage the monopoly on late night TV show. And there's always the option of turn the darn thing off.
- [28:34]
Bill Whelan
All right, excellent question for the three of you. Do you agree that Charlie Kirk's death is a watershed moment? And if so, what comes next? And if Jimmy Kimmel is outright canceled, his contract is up anyway in May. But if ABC decides between now and May to cancel the show, is that likewise a watershed moment? HR you want to go first?
- [28:51]
H.R. McMaster
You know, it's not unprecedented, right? If you look at really far left violence, you know, this kind of brand of violence. How about the 70s? How about the Red Brigades, you know, the seemingly these Liberation army, for example? I mean, so many examples of this, of, of this kind of violence in the 70s. But hey, I, I think people should pay attention to what Governor Spencer Cox said, you know, the Governor of Utah. That guy's fantastic. I think, you know, he really, he did describe it as a watershed moment where we face a choice, you know, do we go down the path, as John said, you know, of going to the bar fight, you know, with the bumping up with the next weapon, or do we decide, okay, let's Be civil to each other. Let's make clear that this kind of violence is intolerable, horrific. But then also recognize that whenever we engage in this kind of vitriolic discourse and attack each other from ad hominem perspectives, instead of really exploring the issues and how we can work together, then we're contributing to an environment that eventually can lead to more of this violence. So I just recommend pay attention to the Governor of Utah.
- [29:58]
Bill Whelan
John.
- [30:00]
John Cochran
I wish it were a watershed moment because I wish this wonderful young man's life could attain more mythic status. But, but I, I don't think so. The watershed moment comes when we stop saying, I'm going to take those huge federal powers and use them my way and vilify the opposition and, and we say, no, that's not the way we want to go. You know, it has, as we've discussed, it has been nice to see the conversation tilt in that direction, but I don't think this particular one is, is going to be the one that changes it.
- [30:33]
Neil Ferguson
Neil Charlie founded Turning Point usa and of course, the kind of turning point that he had in mind was not one that would call for his own death. I just fervently hope that whatever people's political persuasion, I don't care how far to the left you are, or for that matter, how far they're right, you should understand the point of Charlie Kirk. The reason he was on a college campus was that he believed in reasoned debate. He was trying almost as a sort of one man crusader to take on a lot of the radical progressive ideology on college campuses and just argue it out. And he died with a microphone in his hand. The point about Charlie Kirk's life was speech, free speech. And the best turning point that could possibly commemorate all he achieved is that everyone right across the political spectrum gets the message that the United States of America is about free speech, civil discourse, not civil war. That, I hope, is the turning point we've reached.
- [31:46]
John Cochran
Could I add too? We also need to stop catastrophism. What justifies these kinds of extreme feelings is the rhetoric of a catastrophe is coming. This election is the end of democracy. Trump is the new Hitler. Biden is the new Stalin. The planet is going to burn in two years unless we all, you know, de. Industrialize this kind of catastrophism. If you believe that, well then of course it does. That would justify the end of democracy, would justify political violence. We had a lot of political violence in 1860 in the U.S. well, there was a catastrophe at hand. So not just be respectful of each other. But notch down the rhetoric a little. Let's be realistic about what we are actually arguing about and what we're not.
- [32:39]
Bill Whelan
That's well put. I would add for our audience. Please go on to social media, go to X and go to the University Austin's feed and there you'll find a speech that Neil gave earlier this week.
- [32:49]
Neil Ferguson
Charlie Kirk, who dedicated his life to debate and who died with a mike, not a knife in his hand. One of these things, Charlie personified, I think, that innate American love of liberty. Ladies and gentlemen, we at UATX stand with Charlie in the sense that we stand for liberty and we stand for truth.
- [33:23]
Bill Whelan
I think it's on Constitution Day, but Neil just brilliantly takes the Constitution, the founder of the Republic Universities, Charlie Cook, and just brilliantly melts it all together. So do yourself a favor and watch that. Listen to it. Read it if you have a chance. So do you want to. Thanks, Bill. You're welcome. So it's because it's a short show, gentlemen. We're not going to do a full blown lightning round. We're just going to end with one topic and that is remembering the late Robert Redford who passed away at the age of 89. A true movie star, we would agree, unlike today's leading actors and actresses don't seem to have that same kind of aura.
- [33:53]
H.R. McMaster
What's the matter with you?
- [33:54]
Neil Ferguson
I can't swim.
- [33:55]
Bill Whelan
Question for the three of you gentlemen. Do you have a favorite Redford movie? I have one. Since I toiled in California and politics here at Hoover, naturally I gravitate to the candidate, which is a 1972 movie starring Redford. He plays a gentleman named Bill McKay who is an underdog Democratic Senate candidate in California. That's how old this movie is, by the way. Underdog Democrats in California. But it's just a timeless movie because it shows that you start running for office with ideals and vision and then you quickly get in the business of getting elected, which becomes just a very cynical, empty exercise and has one of the great endings in movie history. Now what do we do? So, HR I turn to you for a favorite Redford movie and I'm guessing it's going to be a bridge too far.
- [34:35]
H.R. McMaster
Yeah.
- [34:36]
Bill Whelan
Okay.
- [34:36]
H.R. McMaster
I'll just be super predictable because you know, he had a great character in that movie. I forget his name, but he was.
- [34:42]
Bill Whelan
A major, Major Julian Cook.
- [34:44]
H.R. McMaster
Okay. Major Julian Cook. In the 82nd he gets like this impossible mission, right? You know, turns out that the, the Germans are defending both sides of the bridge and he has to do a, a Like a, a assault across the river, you know, in, In A, an RB15, you know, you know, inflatable boat using their rifles to get across. And, and he's just so stoic about. He knows he's getting like just a real tough mission, but. But he's just. Okay, all right, bring it on.
- [35:10]
Bill Whelan
So, yeah, that's my favorite great backstory to that movie. The great Sean. It's an incredible cast. Look it up. Movies are not made like this anymore. The great Sean Connery is in it. And when Connery heard what Redford was making, Connery walked off the set to make more money. So good. For sure. Sean. John, Robert Redford played, he played paratroopers, he played politicians, he played spies, he, he played cowboys. He never played an economist. I guess it was Russell Co. But do you have a favorite Redford movie one of you point to?
- [35:39]
John Cochran
Oh, the problem is I like a lot of them. I mean, the Sting you haven't mentioned, I thought that was a Chicago that had some Chicago in it. And I love the movie. Redford's problem was he was too good looking. It's just distracting. Not something any of us have any experience with, but, you know, it's just distracting looking at the guy you want to see, you know, evaluate someone as an actor. Look at Paul Giamatti. There's a guy, you really see his acting ability, you know, so, so too bad, Paul, you were so good looking, it's hard to tell what a good actor you were.
- [36:11]
Neil Ferguson
All the President, all the President's Men is the one that one can't really get away from because it's inspired a generation of journalists not only to believe that they could topple President just by doorsteping people until they nail the story, but also to believe that they could be as good looking as Robert Redford, which no journalist has ever been or will ever be.
- [36:37]
Bill Whelan
Yeah, good point. By the way. Quick counterfactual, Neil. If Robert F. Kennedy is the president in 1970s and it's his aides who are burglars, do you think Ben Bradley goes forward with investigating Kennedy?
- [36:49]
Neil Ferguson
No, And I think that's part of the key to understanding Watergate. That Watergate happens because stuff that the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson had kind of routinely done when it was done by Nixon became a fantastic way for the New York Times, the Department of justice, the Kennedy Democrats, all the people who hated Nixon to get him. And that, that was the thing that always rankled with Nixon as well as with the people who did time for Watergate. So in that counterfactual it does seem much less plausible. What would National Review have brought down the Kennedy, A Bobby Kennedy presidency over. Over a break in to the Republican headquarters? I don't think. I don't think Buckley was that powerful. But I agree with John. It was always a distraction. And that's why I quite like all the President's Men. Because you've got Dustin Hoffman who looks like a real journalist opposite this Adonis like figure who's sort of pretending to be a journalist and that sort of. I thought that worked. It was the, it's the way the, the two play off one another that's so, so good in that film.
- [38:01]
Bill Whelan
Okay, well, gentlemen, we'll leave it there. Great conversation. Good to see you all. I'm glad your travels went well and we'll be back a new episode very soon. Early October, I believe. On behalf of my colleagues, Sir, Neil Ferguson, HR McMaster, John Cochran, all of us here at the Hoover Institution, we hope you enjoyed today's abbreviated show. If you want to follow more about Neil, John and hr sign up for the Hoover Diller Report. Also, they all write, they substack, they do columns at the Free Press and so forth. You will not lack material for them. Definitely check them out. And that's it for this episode until next time. Take care. Thanks for watching.
- [38:33]
H.R. McMaster
Okay, we gotta get out there.
- [38:35]
John Cochran
See, I told you they'd be.
- [38:39]
H.R. McMaster
Marvin. What do we do now? Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
- [38:43]
Bill Whelan
What.