Area 45

The state of the US economy in two words: “getting better.” That’s the learned opinion of John Taylor, the Hoover Institution’s George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics and the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He forecasts continued growth thanks to the latest round of tax cuts and regulatory reform – and wishes Washington would address another of his proscribed principles of economic well-being: budget reform. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 31:45)

Though it’s a relatively small expanse (just one-and-a-half times the size of the US), the Arctic Ocean is fraught with global strategic concerns. David Slayton, a Hoover research fellow and co-chair of Hoover’s Arctic Security Initiative, explains the Trump Administration’s options on “the top of the world” regarding military expansion, resource development and maritime passage. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 41:17)

A century ago, an American president had little to say while the world was ravaged by a flu pandemic. In 2018, in the midst of yet another flu epidemic, so too is President Trump silent. What are the Trump Administration’s options in terms of offering vaccines, speeding up drug research and raising public awareness? Dr. Henry Miller, the Hoover Institution’s Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy – and a physician and former flu researcher – discusses how to cure what literally ails the nation. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 52:05)

Ordinarily, the second-place finisher in a presidential election doesn’t have a second political act. But the times aren’t ordinary and Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, is now a US Senate candidate in Utah. Hoover research fellow Lanhee Chen, Romney’s 2012 policy director, discusses what compelled his former boss to make the run and whether Romney will be a Trump White House ally or nemesis. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 34:34)

A funny thing happened to America’s libertarian movement – it expected a champion to emerge in the 2016 election; it may or may not have one in Donald Trump. Richard Epstein, the Hoover Institution’s Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow and the voice behind “The Libertarian” podcast, grades the Trump presidency from a libertarian vantage. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 1:02:50)

With the polling data available, how does the discerning citizen make sense of the Trump presidency and the probabilities in the upcoming midterm election? David Brady, the Hoover Institution’s Davies Family Senior Fellows, offers his viewers’ guide for how to track U.S. politics in the months ahead. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 59:10)

California, the land of anti-Trump “resistance”, has its own problems both irresistible and intractable – mounting public pension debt, underfunded schools, and a revenue stream too dependent upon capital gains. David Crane, a Stanford lecturer, past economic aide to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and co-founder of Govern for California, weighs the health of the state so bitterly opposed to Trump. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 47:32)

Eight years after Iran’s Green Movement and antigovernment protests, will the current unrest in the nation have no lasting impact or is it the beginning of the end for the repressive theocracy? Abbas Milani, a Hoover research fellow and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, explains the nature of the uprising, Tehran’s response, and the Trump administration’s options. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 49:56)

Recorded on December 12, 2017 Washington, DC, is a complicated town full of competing interests vying to control the federal government. Michael Franc, director of the Hoover Institution’s research and initiatives program in the nation’s capital and a former congressional aide, takes us through the past year’s drama, saying why the town hasn’t adjusted to the Trump presidency and offering a holiday guide as to who’s been naughty and nice in 2017. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 1:00:45)

Recorded on December 11, 2017 For years Hoover media fellow Debra J. Saunders was the San Francisco Chronicle’s token conservative columnist until moving to Washington to cover the Trump White House for the Las Vegas Review–Journal. In this podcast she offers a ringside account of White House daily press briefings, Trump’s contentious attitude toward reporters, and what an unpopular political media can do to restore its prestige. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 52:35)

Recorded on December 11, 2017 As the US Navy carries out high-profile missions in the Persian Gulf and off the Korean coast, China’s navy quietly continues its expansion: a maritime silk road stretching across the Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Aden. Admiral Gary Roughead, former US Navy chief of naval operations and Hoover’s Robert and Marion Oster Distinguished Military Fellow, discusses the stakes in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific theatres and assesses the US Navy’s current operational, maintenance, and shipbuilding needs. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 55:17)

A question over who’s in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has led to a standoff between the Trump administration and the Rebel Alliance: independent-minded CFPB staffers who believe they don’t report to the president. Hoover fellow Adam White discusses Trump’s battle with the administrative state, what 2018 could bring in regulatory reform, and whether the pace will pick up on Trump judicial nominees. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 47:36)

Seventy-six years ago, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America went to war. Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover senior fellow and author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, discusses lessons learned from that conflict’s successes and failures and how they apply today. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 50:30)

America at its worst divide since the Civil War? Not exactly, says Hoover senior fellow Morris Fiorina, the author of Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate. Fiorina contends that voters haven’t abandoned the center but that the two major parties have, the result being continued experimentation with the political order in Washington. Will 2018 see a continuation of the third great stretch of instability in national politics? Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe (Playing time: 38:50)

In November 1963 Paul Gregory’s family resided in Fort Worth, Texas. As members of the city’s Russian immigrant community, they befriended Lee and Marina Oswald. Gregory recounts his time in the company of JFK’s assassin, possible motivations for Oswald’s committing the crime, and why he doesn’t buy into the many conspiracy theories surrounding the events in Dallas. Paul Gregory is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 32:28)