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A
On the new episode of the Larry Arn Show, Hillsdale College President Larry Arn sits down with former U.S. navy SEAL officer Leif Babin for a one on one conversation.
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B
I would say in Iraq, from my experience there, I think we won the war and we lost the peace. I think that's the best way to describe that. And I think that comes from mission creep because I think you have to define very clearly what are you actually trying to do. And we learned a lot of very tough and humbling leadership lessons on the battlefield in Ramadi. Humility, ownership, teamwork. We learned that leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. And by leadership, I'm not just talking about the senior person in charge, but by everyone in the organization, right down to the frontline trooper.
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A
Listen to this exclusive interview with Leif Babin right now, only available on the Larry Arn Show. Find it on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at, at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio and subscribe to receive new episodes delivered right to your device. That's Podcast Hillsdale Edu. Every week Hillsdale College president Larry Arne joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books, great men and and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at Podcast Hillsdale Edu or wherever you find your audio.
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C
Morning glory and evening Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. That music means it's time for the hilltale dialogue. Welcome to the last broadcast hour of the week. My guest is Dr. Larry Arnold, President of Hillsdale College. He joins me each Friday. Either look very far back or just even a week back. In this case, we're looking at recent news. What's been going on in the news recently. Dr. Arn, welcome. I hope you are having an excellent summer and that kids haven't come back to school yet. You're still enjoying yourself. Am I right about that?
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D
Well, we have to work in the summer, but it is true that the 1650 variables are not on the campus. And so it's different kind of work in some ways.
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C
Are the teachers there? Because most summers there are teachers courses convening at Hillsdale.
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D
Yeah, we have a lot of people come to the campus. We had 1500 K through 12 teachers. We have hostels and they're always full and there's seven of them I think this summer, the last week and you know, hundreds of people come. Yeah, it's a busy place, very busy. And.
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C
And the construction. I like to get the construction update. Are we closing in?
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D
No. Well, the. We're about A year away on the library, but now it looks like a library. It's going to be impressive. And it's, you know, boy, it's if you learn about construction, the early stages of construction are demoralizing to people. We had a hard winter last winter in the quad. The North Quad was all torn up, but now it's looking imposing. And so it's, you know, it's going to be really great, but it takes a while. We've just finalized the design of a war memorial that we're putting directly across the quad from the library to memorialize our country and our war dead, which are numerous through our long history. And we're going to we're starting to work on a visitor center pretty soon. So it's going to be a picture, but right now it's not a fully complete picture.
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C
Well, I raised the construction question because first segment of this week in review and we're taping on Tuesday for a Friday broadcast. So there could be things that happen after the program tapes before it airs. We're in a pause when we're talking in our battle with Iran and the last 13 days before, the last three days, heavy bombing of sites and you know what it's like to rebuild. I, I'm a little skeptical of our legacy news media saying, oh, they've rebuilt everything. They're doing great. Aren't you skeptical of those stories since, you know, construction?
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D
Yeah, sure. It, you know, yeah. What, what do I. So first of all, they're resilient, right? I thought they would be. I think this thing is very hard. I think it's part of a great world contest that's going on intensely now and will go on, in my opinion, for a long time. But we've hurt him pretty bad, too. They don't have as many allies as they used to have. Their capacity is degraded, although apparently not removed. And they've got Russia and China to help them. And so they will tend to come back. And when and whether a final end to our problems with Iran will come is hard to say. But the problems existed before the war and at some point they're going to be acute in the future. And they are acute now.
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C
In your 20 plus years as leading Hillsdale, have you drawn many students from the Persian diaspora, heavily located in Southern California, but it's also throughout the United States. Have you had a lot of Persians who fled the country after the revolution of 79?
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D
The answer is a few, not a lot. We're pretty full and we don't really recruit abroad. A lot Although our numbers of foreign students have been swelling lately. Swelling doesn't mean a big number, but it's probably tripled to maybe 60 kids or something like that. And we didn't really make any particular effort about that. We seem to be getting known and so, yeah. And you know, if you come to Hillsdale College, you have to make a bunch of commitments and you're aware that you're going to undergo a torture that applies equally to everyone. So that tends to collapse the differences
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C
among our students in the Persian American diaspora in la. Very achievement oriented. Lots of doctors, lots of lawyers, lots of people who excel in business. I just thought they would be showing up. I had one of your own on this week. Philip Wegman, now ace reporter for the Wall Street Journal. You're taking over slowly, major media outlets. John Miller is doing a fine job there, I'm not surprised. But are you, are you happy with that? Do you want Hillsdale to own the media too?
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D
Yeah. If nothing else, to be able to hope that it will shut up. It's a no. It. Yeah, we've, you know, there's your, your, your buddy Jack Butler. My graduate is important at the Wall Street Journal. I think there's nine working there now. Yeah. And they get around and they, you know, the reports of them are, they know a lot and they're used to working hard. And I had a former general editor of the Wall Street Journal come to see me one day. He's retired now and he was on the campus and he paid a courtesy call on the president's office. And I said, what are you doing here? And he said, I came to get some kids. And I said, good. And he said, yours are different. And I said, how? And he said, well, what we do in journalism is look at the facts. And we're not as good at that as we used to be. But your kids learn to look at things and try to see them as they are rather than impose their theories on them. So, yeah, it makes good journalists. Get a good education and learn how
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C
to write along the way. Let me taught you, go back to the war with Iran. There are. Immediately after I'm done talking with you today, I'm going to talk to one of your fellows, Victor Davis Hanson, historian extraordinaire. And put to him this question. The 1930s took a while for people to realize, Churchill before anyone else, that the world was dividing into camps. And it took the United States getting hit at Pearl harbor to actually join the good guys and the Soviet Union to get double crossed to join the good Guys. And that war went on for six years after that. It took a couple of years for it to become clear that there was a Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact and China for a while and their allies and the west and our allies and an online movement. Now it seems to me it's become very clear that is China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, a couple of proxies like the Houthis and the Hamas and Hezbollah and then all the rest of the world has to pick up sides and Venezuela picked wrong. Now they're on our team. Cuba picked wrong and they're out of power. Is it that stark in your mind, Dr. Arne?
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D
Oh, yeah, yeah, it is. And the reason for that is China too is proving resilient. I mean, we, you know, it's the trouble. The hard thing about the, about predictions is that they have to do with the future. But China has grained in strength consistently now for a generation and they're assertive and they're all over the world and they're, you know, the thing that I worry about the most is that we're studying the Second World War in our long term view right now. And our contribution to winning that war was simply decisive. And it had very much to do with manufacturing. The reason the Russians did so well against the Germans in the east and built what was then the biggest and probably greatest military of the age was that they moved in trucks. And those trucks were made in Detroit. And the German army right through the Second World War was mostly a horse drawn army and they just couldn't keep up. And when they confronted us on the Western front after the Normandy invasions, they couldn't quite, you know, they were staggered by the speed of it. And the reason is it was moving in machines. Now China has greater manufacturing power than we have now and the administration is working on that and trying to build that back up and there's progress. But we're not the world's greatest manufacturing power anymore. Although maybe still the most sophisticated, one hopes.
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C
So how far along do you think the Clarity index is in the minds of most Americans? Because when you and I were young, there was a Soviet Union and they were the bad guys and the Warsaw Pact was on their side and China was on their side and it was very clear. We have a minute to the break. How clear is the division of the world today in the mind of people coming back to campus in a few weeks at Hillsdale?
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D
Well, I think everybody knows it. Yeah. And you know, there's another thing that's like the 1930s is America is angst ridden and it probably worse than it was in the 1930s, although it's hard to measure. And their angst came from the first World War and the terrible nature of that war and the fact that it sort of changed everybody's thinking about the past and the future. Well, we have things like that going on in our country that are very serious and we're worried about them. Right.
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C
Dr. Arn, I want to go back to the Iran war. There are three results, broadly speaking and I'll ask VDH this as well. We can win. I think I know what that looks like. They capitulate or the regime collapses. They agree to simply non belligerent status and to leave Israel and our friends in the Gulf alone and the strait is open or we lose and that means the strait is closed and we can't open it or we're going to have a long drawn out blockade to wait for them to collapse. Of those three options, what do you think is going to happen?
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D
Well, first of all, I don't think that we're nearing a end of our problems with Iran. I think that it's probable that they will be better in the intermediate future than they have been because I think they're weaker and I think that we're organized about them. We've put together a coalition like one of the most promising things to come out of this war is that we've got a bunch of allies in those Arab states and they're very worried about Iran. Some of them have attacked Iran, which they were very reluctant to do in previous times. And so there's a clarity there that is healthy. On the other hand, it's a despotic state and they have used torture and there are 10, probably tens of thousands of them who impose the state. And so that's not going to get overturned tomorrow probably. And as long as they're there they're a problem. And, and so I don't expect us to settle this soon. And I even I, I thought you people may remember I said on this show at the outset the idea that we're just going to do them in right now is optimistic, probably not. But if we can restrain them, I'll mention two articles that suggest strategic thoughts. One was an account of the Trump foreign policy which was he was trying to restrain our enemies. He's not trying to liberalize them. He's not trying to turn them into democracies which are infinite tasks. He's trying to restrain them. If you see this war in that context, you'd think that he's had some success and they're hard to restrain, and we don't have complete success yet. The second one is about a conception called strategic interdiction. How do you figure out how to hurt them so that their essential capacities to do you harm are compromised? And this article that I read claimed that the Israelis thought better about that than we do. But Trump has done some cool things here. The current ceasefire and God knows how long it'll last, that comes from him saying, okay, every time you take out a freight, we're going to take out a power plant. Yes, the blockade, our blockade, was an act of genius. Now it imposes cost on the world economy that we don't want. Right. I looked this morning. I think oil is selling about $80 a barrel, and that's pretty, pretty good. And if it goes to 200, that'll be really bad for the world economy and US. And I think I made the point earlier that we are the world's largest exporter of oil, but we're also the world's largest importer of oil because there are some kinds and some refining capacities that we don't have, and that means that we have a net advantage. But the world market for oil is terribly significant to us as it is to everyone. So, yeah, that's. These problems are deeply rooted and they're not going to go away tomorrow. China is a powerful country and it's a despotism, and Russia is a powerful country. How powerful is controversial, but powerful for sure. And it has an old habit of putting up with too much out of its government. Whatever problem it is, it's likely to persist. So that's going to go on, I think. And I think we have to accommodate ourselves to that world. And another thing people should remember is economies when they're free, and the world economy has a lot of freedom in it. Not enough for my taste, but a lot. And when they're free, they adjust, right? And there are huge adjustments underway right now. Major pipeline built so that you don't have to go through the Strait of Hormuz to get some of the Gulf oil out that's underway, that they're building that now. So that'll change things, right? And there'll still be problems when those are changed. But if we are adaptable and run our affairs well and don't spend our seed corn on government waste, which is chronic problem, then we can be a strong nation for a long time, which we very much need to be.
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C
Our mutual friend Dennis Prager has always said clarity before agreement, and I think things are becoming very clear. Israel's always had great clarity about Iran, but things are becoming very clear for the Gulf Arabs, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Bahrain. I think UAE always had a good vision of what was going on in Iran. I think that's an enormous benefit to the West. Do you agree with that?
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D
Yeah, we need, you know, I mean, look, it's just the case that we need allies and we need them to contribute at least as much as we contribute. And so those are important accretions of strength. And that's. You got to salute that.
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C
And are you shocked how shallow is the root system in NATO? My last question in this segment, we'll go to Ukraine and Israel in the third segment. But what about NATO? I'm just amazed at how little they've done, how weak they've become.
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D
Well, European countries are in a trauma, right. I was in England last month and it's, you know, they're on their seventh prime minister in 10 years and this guy's pretty laughed and seems vigorous. The last guy didn't. But they're not spending the money to defend themselves. And it's not just the money. Remember, it's a culture. We're going to read about that when we go back to Churchill because the passages we're going to take up in the final hour have much to do with that. It depends on, you know, war is a great trial, a national trial, and what is the national will and unity and how well can they. And see, they don't have that right now. Now, the surging parties in Europe are all they would all diminish the European Union and its power. They would get control of immigration and they would go down a new track. And the Tories in England, which they pride themselves being the largest political party in the world, Kimmy Badenoch is the leader of the Tories. My wife likes her and she is not going to let anybody run. Who's for net zero?
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C
I'm taping this show with Dr. Larry Arne of Hillsdale College on Tuesday when both President Zelensky of Ukraine and Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel are at the White House. They've met with President Trump by the time we've begun this. And the funeral services underway for Lindsey Graham, which we'll talk about in the next segment. I am curious, Dr. Arndt, at the very beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you said on this program, sometimes there's a figure appears in history that is unanticipated who's able to rally a country and that was Zelensky, and, boy, he's held it together for a number of years. A lot of critics of him in the west, but they're still standing, and they're doing more than standing. They're fighting back. And now they're making a million drones a year, and they're providing drones to our Gulf allies and they're fighting on. Meanwhile, Israel has been flying wing to wing with the United States. This is a fundamental difference from February, when this war began with Iran, or at least the current phase of the war began. How do you assess those two countries as allies?
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D
Well, the first question about an ally is, are they on your side? And the second question is, can they contribute? And Ukraine is just a marvel. Right. I was with some military guys at a camp last week, and one of them commented that Ukraine is building more drones in a month than we have in our arsenal. Ukraine? Yep, Little Ukraine. And, you know, they're striking Moscow and they've basically eliminated or what neutered the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, which is part of the pride of Russian military power going back to the 18th century, when they got control of Crimea. So they've just done marvels. Right. And, you know, Trump likes a winner, and, you know, that matters your allies, you need them to help. And so these guys are pretty strong and good on them. And the Israelis, too, we've known for a long time they can fight, and they have fought very well alongside us. And so there. Those are valuable. Right. And if you look at what NATO has, you know, if. If I'm right, that, you know, I mean, I'm writing something about this right now. If God gives me time, I'll finish it. And I was asked to give a talk about standing on the shoulders of giants. George Washington and Winston Churchill and the Anglo American Alliance. I didn'. Make up the title, and I thought the title was funny, because the effect of George Washington on the Anglo American alliance and the effect of Winston Churchill were precisely opposite. Yes. And so what have those guys in common? Well, come to find out they have a very great deal in common. Winston Churchill. We'll see evidence of it in these chapters that we're going to read next week from Finest Hour. Churchill didn't believe in making commitments except in the interest of his country, and commitments that were calculated to be able to perform and make the country stronger. And that's George Washington, too. And, you know, Churchill became, you know, a great builder of grand global alliances, and George Washington never did that. He stayed out of the war between France, which was vital to our revelation. And England, which was the enemy in our revolution, he stayed out of the thing. Some wanted to join France, some wanted to go join England. He wanted out, so he was neutral. Well, you have to account for the world being different. Right. The world is. We are now subject to immediate attack. And technology has changed in ways that make the world dangerous immediately to us that it was not before. I mean, in the First World War, there was no power that could sail a fleet across the Pacific and do serious damage to an American naval base. And our entry Into World War II was provoked by the destruction of Pearl Harbor. That's cause aircraft carriers. And so it's, you know, we need allies and we've got some, and they're helping out. And Europe needs to get its house in order. One of the themes of this administration has been, you've got to get your house in order here. I think J.D. vance's finest hour was a couple of speeches he gave in Europe about those themes. You should. And it wasn't just, you need to build up your military. And remember, that's not just money. Right. That's young people believing in the country, prepared to fight for it. And he said, you ought to protect people's freedom, too. Why don't you do that?
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C
As I noted at the beginning of the program, I taped this discussion with Dr. Larry Arn on the day that Lindsey Graham was being memorialized at the National Cathedral after a ceremony in the Rotunda. And I just wanted to ask Dr. Arn about three things. The nature of Lindsey Graham, the nature of the Senate and why the DSA is on record as wanting to destroy it, and his own state's Senate race in the primary between Dr. Al Said and Congresswoman Haley Stevens. Let's start with Lindsey Graham. I don't know how often you cross paths with him. Frequent guest on the show and always a hawk. Always funny, always smart. And I heard a funny story about Lindsey this week, which is the only thing he feared in life was being called the former Senator Lindsey Graham. What do you think of Lindsay?
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D
Yeah, well, he has something in common with Donald Trump. He was. I always found him unpredictable. I mean, those great themes in his life defend the country. He was hawkish. Yeah. And that's partly right, at least it depends on the circumstances, whether that's right or not. He was usually right, I thought, but he would just come up with the wildest things, you know, and he get mad at Trump and then he'd support him. And so he was nimble, he was galvanizing, and he Had a long, great career in the Senate, which is a great thing to have.
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C
And the Senate is a unique place. I think it's unique in the world, actually, for the importance that attaches to its members, the significance there. But they still have to act as a body. No one individual matters that much. And the DSA's attack on the Senate is really a leveling. It's a bulldozer of one of our great institutions. I think people should be aware of that, that they're records of a great institution.
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D
Yeah. Well, you know, the key to have good government of any kind, free government, is the hardest of the kind that can be good. You have to have two things. You have to have the gathering and use of power, and you have to have the distribution and check power. And the Senate is a key institution, especially in that second thing. It. You know, there's a lot of debate about the filibuster, and I have a very consistent record about that. I'm in favor of it when they're about to do something terrible, and I'm against it when. When they're preventing from doing something good. But it's so it. But the Senate is that. And there is an end of it. Like the British House of Commons is kind of a herd now. Right. And our Congress as a rule. Right. They don't make most of our laws anymore. And that's a pride. Like, you will know that the constitutional health of America is strong again when Congress has authority over all the laws. And right now it makes 20% of them or something like that.
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C
They're getting closer, though. This court is carving back the administrative state. It's been over four years that that's unfolded, but it's getting closer. And I like that. I know you like that as well. Neil Gorsuch is the one who said his book was overruled. He said we don't know how many agencies there are in the federal government from the Supreme. We can't count them. There's so many of them.
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D
I wrote. There's a great. That book. I wrote a review of that book and admire almost everything he's done. There's a couple of things we could name, but that book has a story in there about a guy who lost his fishing boat to. And what he had was they stopped his boat and weighed his fish and he had some number out of thousands under right poundage and not enough. Then he went back to the dock and they weighed him again and this time they found a few too many and they took his boat. And that's just a local decision by a nameless bureaucrat under laws that are vague and nobody quite knows what they mean, including the bureaucrat. And then he goes, you know, he eventually, if I remember the story correctly, is the book opens with this story. I think he died and his wife kept up the lawsuit and was finally vindicated. And then Gorsuch makes the point that most people never get that vindication.
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C
No, they don't.
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E
So.
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C
And they're working on that. I'm glad they are. I want to make sure I get on Tuesday next Michigan's gonna select someone to run against Mike Rogers. Now I'm supporting Mike Rogers. Hillsdale's nonpartisan, but as you look at Haley Stevens, sort of a traditional left wing Liberal Democrat and Dr. Al Said, who is a DSAer and a Marxist in my view, though he denies it. Do you think Michigan is all for turning, do you think they're really going to go all the way to the left? They've never been crazy.
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D
Well, you never can tell. It's a non presidential year and so the turnout will be crucial and not as great as in a presidential year. And so it's hard to predict what can happen. It's close race in the polls at least. And who comes to the polls is vital. If the Democratic Party has any sense in needs to put a stop to some of this stuff. Right. Because it's very destructive. This, this man EL Sayed, this, he's a very academic guy. Mamdani has got some academic chops, right. They're highly educated people and they're strongly of the left and they would undo the institutions that have kept America stable and growing for its history. So if the Democratic Party's got any sense in it and it is a very disciplined party, you know, they've got, I judge, more central control than the Republicans have. They'll get out the vote for the other guy. And you know, and it's not just a matter of winning the general election. This stuff is, you know, fundamentally destructive to the country. And so, and it's growing in the
- [30:10]
C
Democratic Party and so and, and it's a menace. And it's taken over congressional seat after congressional seat. I think it'll get turned back in Maine, I think it'll get turned back in Michigan. Minnesota will be the third all things Hillsdale Friends at Hillsdale Edu and in three weeks when we're back or four weeks and when we're talking, we will review what happened in Michigan with Dr. Ryan and talk about what it means for the Democratic Party going forward all things hillsdalesdale. Edu. All of our dialogues are contained over at q4hillsdale.com the qforhillsdale.com.
- [30:48]
A
Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogue, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at podcast hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to Hillsdale Eduardo hello, this is Jeremiah
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E
Regan, Executive Director of Online Learning here at Hillsdale College, and I have some great news. We've brought Hillsdale's incredibly popular free online courses to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network, and our next series is the American Left From Liberalism to Despotism, a course taught by Associate professor of Politics Kevin Slack and Hillsdale President Larry P. Arn. After listening to all 11 episodes, you'll have a deeper understanding of what has happened to America in the past 60 years and what we can do about it today. The Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast, hosted by Online Learning Marketing Director Juan Davalos and me, expands Hillsdale's mission to provide all who wish to learn the education necessary to increase happiness and to preserve the civil and religious liberties of America. We want you to be a part of it at Podcast Hillsdale. Eduardo subscribe now to the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast to hear new episodes every week with additional commentary and insights from our team. Go to podcast hillsdale.edu to learn more. That's Podcast Hillsdale Eduardo.