Matters of Policy & Politics

As North and South Korean leaders meet to discuss a possible peace agreement and an end to decades of hostility, is President Trump’s next move a one-on-one summit with the “honorable” Kim Jong-un? Hoover senior fellow Thomas Henriksen assesses the stakes on the Korean peninsula and what Trump could and should not do to avoid the frustration experienced by recent American presidents.

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First Lady Melania Trump has championed cyber-bullying as a cause, but Hoover visiting fellow Markos Kounalakis thinks she should broaden her horizons – to include a little diplomacy in her native Central Europe. It’s a portion of the world that’s drifted into angry nationalism, economic uncertainty and civil unrest, with one country (Poland) displaying troubling anti-Semitic tendencies. Kounalakis talks about all of that, plus he discusses Vladimir Putin’s Russia playing a meddling role around the world.

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Now that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has pulled back on a plan to double the entry fees to America’s national parks, how will Washington address the multi-billion-dollar infrastructure backlog facing the National Park Service? Terry Anderson, the Hoover Institution’s John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow and a proponent of “free market environmentalism,” discusses how to modernize the park system while preserving its natural splendor. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 44:29)

A quarter of a century since the nation’s first charter school opened in Minnesota, a new administration in Washington speaks of “school choice.” Eric Hanushek, the Hoover Institution’s Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow, and Macke Raymond, a Hoover distinguished research fellow and director of the Stanford-based Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), discuss the health of the charter-school movement and what needs to be done at the federal, state, and local levels to improve the nation’s classrooms. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 44:30)

The coming midterm election is more than a litmus test of the Trump presidency. It’s also a continuation of a fourth cycle of political polarization dating back to the Civil War. David Brady, the Hoover Institution’s Davies Family Senior Fellow, explains the sorting-out in the election – a possible surge in women voters, Trump loyalists’ enthusiasm, and the two parties dealing with their respective ideological differences in elections nationwide. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 53:09)

T.S. Eliot deemed April “the cruelest month,” but for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg it’s been March with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal that’s cast doubt on the fabled “social network.” Niall Ferguson, the Hoover Institution’s Milbank Family Senior Fellow and a frequent author on technology and Silicon Valley’s prominence, examines the perils of “hyperconnection.” Has Zuckerberg fulfilled George Orwell’s vision of a society of addicted to an all-knowing, all-watching telescreen? Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 54:27)

“Making America toxic again,” as one publication suggested, or a public servant dedicated to paring honest science and environmental stewardship? Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, stops by to explain how the Trump Administration has reoriented the EPA, its highlights and priorities, and how a former college baseball player deals with political hardball in the nation’s capital. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 17:27)

How’s the Trump presidency faring and what’s its effect on “Victorian Reagan conservatives” and the political chattering class? Hugh Hewitt, a conservative talk-radio and MSNBC host (not to mention the recipient of several Trump barbs as a 2016 GOP debate host), weighs in on the good, the bad and the ugly of Trump’s reign. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 34:03)

Donald Trump’s rallies with the Rolling Stone’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want, But If You Try Sometimes, You Get What You Need.” Is that the prevailing conservative attitude 14 months into his presidency? Rich Lowry, editor of The National Review, discusses the right’s complicated relationship with a President who both delivers for and confounds the Republican base, but do they get what they need? Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 40:06)

By the 2020 election, America’s “millennial” class will replace Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest age-bloc of voters. David Davenport, a Hoover Institution research fellow specializing in constitution federalism and Americans politics and law, discusses what it will take to get a cynical under-35 crowd to the polls and, in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, whether the even younger “Generation Z” will emerge as a political force. Did you like the show? Please rate, review, and subscribe! (Playing time: 40:09)