Matters of Policy & Politics

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)