Conversations With Bill Kristol

How should the U.S. and others in the West respond to Putin’s war on Ukraine? What dangers and opportunities might we face in the days and weeks ahead? How might the war reshape geopolitics? Less than a week into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, much remains unknown. To help us get a better sense of where things might go, we are joined by Eric Edelman, former ambassador to Turkey and Finland and undersecretary of Defense. Edelman and Kristol consider where things stand—the impressive Ukrainian resistance, Putin’s difficulties, and the response from Europe, the US, and other allies. Edelman argues it is imperative that the West continue to support the Ukrainian resistance to ensure that Putin does not succeed in destroying Ukraine. Looking more broadly, Edelman and Kristol consider what dangers and opportunities may follow from a geopolitical event which already is causing major shifts in how countries in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere view their geopolitical position.

What is driving Vladimir Putin? What wider ramifications might follow from the war? Why should the fate of Ukraine concern us all? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Anne Applebaum, a leading historian and commentator on Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe. As she argues, Vladimir Putin’s fear that Ukraine had been advancing toward democracy lies at the root of the conflict. Drawing on her deep knowledge of the region and its history, Applebaum presents a bracing account of the origins of the war and its possible consequences.

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is considered one of history's most compelling examples of political rhetoric. In this Conversation, Diana Schaub, a preeminent scholar of American political thought and author of His Greatest Speeches: How Lincoln Moved the Nation, argues that while Lincoln’s Second Inaugural deserves its reputation, often its true character has not been appreciated. Over the course of her line-by-line interpretation of the dialogue, Schaub draws out some remarkable, counterintuitive, and little-appreciated aspects of Lincoln’s March 1865 address. Schaub and Kristol pay particular attention to the theological-political themes, and how the magnificent and subtle rhetoric of the speech presses the nation toward racial reconciliation and a politics of true moderation and greater humanity.

In his recent book Betrayal, ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl writes: We now live in a nation where a large part of the population does not trust our elections. There are many reasons for this, but none greater than Donald Trump and the lies he told about the 2020 election. Based on extensive interviews with Donald Trump, key members of the Trump administration, and other prominent figures in the Trump orbit, Karl shows how the former president tried to undermine the 2020 election at every turn. In this Conversation, Karl shares new details from his reporting about how Trump laid the groundwork for questioning the results of the election in the months leading up to it, and how he responded to the results on election night. And he shows how Trump, after the election, was single-mindedly (if not always systematically) devoted to overturning the results—culminating in his effort to pressure Mike Pence to disregard the results of the Electoral College. Bill Kristol and Karl also discuss why i

A professor of linguistics at Columbia University and author of the recent book Woke Racism, John McWhorter has been an outspoken critic of woke politics. The appeal to wokeness, he argues, presents a simplistic view of race and attempts to discredit any contrary points of view about ideas and policies. According to McWhorter, the woke end up having disproportionate power simply because of what social media allows them to do to people. He argues that we should stand up to them—and focus on developing policies that can help people rather than shutting down debate.

Where do things stand with Covid-19? How has the emergence of the Omicron variant changed the situation? What can we expect in the short term and throughout 2022? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. While noting that much still remains unknown about the Omicron variant, Jha suggests that the United States likely will be in for a challenging few months: We have a lot of data that Omicron is going to spread very rapidly. But that doesn’t answer the question as to whether it’s more contagious inherently, or is it evading our immune response. It’s probably a combination of both. There is now pretty clear data that our vaccines will be pushed to the wall on this. The good news, according to Jha, is our vaccines—especially taken with booster doses—likely will maintain strong protection against hospitalization and serious illness. The bad news is there still are a relatively large number of unvaccinated Americans who are particular

In a recent essay, Shep Melnick, a distinguished scholar of American politics at Boston College, writes: Few federal laws have achieved their initial objective more completely than Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Yet today Title IX is more controversial than ever before. The story of its evolution is a cautionary tale about how good intentions and broadly shared goals can become distorted over time by aggressive cultural combat, and how hard it can be to reverse the damage. In this Conversation, and expounding on themes addressed in his book The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education, Melnick traces the transformation of Title IX from 1972 until the present. Conceived as an initiative that would prevent sex discrimination on campus, Title IX, as Melnick explains, became a catchall source for rules and regulations in higher education regarding sexual assault, sexual harassment, and offensive speech. Melnick argues that the Obama administration's heavy-handed approach

Why have the costs of basic goods and services been increasing in recent months? Will shortages in stores and delays in orders for durable goods persist—and what is the meaning of the often invoked supply-chain issues? What public policies might help ameliorate the situation? In this Conversation, Scott Lincicome, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, considers the dynamics of the economy during the pandemic—the fiscal stimulus, accommodative monetary policy, dislocations in the global supply chain—and considers possible paths forward beyond the Covid era. He points to container ships backed up in our major ports as an example of how a sclerotic regulatory framework can worsen a serious problem and increase our vulnerability to a threat like supply shocks. Lincicome recommends modernizing infrastructure via automation, increasing our workforce via immigration, and improving our resilience via deregulation.

In recent years, immigration has become a major flashpoint in our politics. Our increasingly rancorous quarrels often serve to obscure rather than clarify policy choices, and make it more difficult to achieve sound policies. As a result, even as attention is given to problems at the border, surprisingly little attention is paid to reforming our broken immigration system. In this Conversation, Linda Chavez, a longtime analyst of immigration and immigration policy, explains that our outdated laws are urgently in need of repair. Chavez points out key areas where the nation as a whole would benefit from new policies, and discusses the obstacles to legislating or implementing them. In particular, President Trump campaigned on immigration restriction and pressed federal agencies to curb immigration in various ways, policies that candidate Biden opposed—but to this point the Biden administration mostly has avoided coming to grips with many aspects of the immigration issue. As a result, important questions like the s

But since my intent is to write something useful to whoever understands it, it has appeared to me more fitting to go directly to the effectual truth of the thing than to the imagination of it. — Niccolo Machiavelli, in Chapter 15 of The Prince. According to Harvey Mansfield, these lines including the phrase effectual truth—a term invented by Machiavelli—are central to Machiavelli’s founding of the revolution in philosophy, science, and politics that we call modernity. In this Conversation—our 200th episode!—our first and most frequent guest Harvey Mansfield returns to the program to discuss his recent work on Machiavelli, and presents an incisive and provocative account of some of the more challenging and too-little-understood aspects of Machiavelli’s teaching. In particular, Mansfield draws out the world-historical significance of Machiavelli’s discovery or invention of the effectual truth and shows why Machiavelli can justly be called the founder of modernity. This Conversation has also been added to the Ha

In a recent law review article, University of Chicago law professor William Baude writes, After the 2020 presidential election, the peaceful transfer of power can no longer be taken for granted. How well did our institutions respond to the challenges? What vulnerabilities in our electoral processes and loopholes in our laws represent the most critical threats for the future? In this Conversation, Baude shares his perspective on the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath—and particularly the efforts in certain states and in Congress led by President Trump and those who fought for him to overturn the electoral victory of Joe Biden. Baude explains how these efforts to subvert the election create a dangerous precedent. Baude contends that the courts and other institutions resisted the attempt to overturn the election reasonably well. But, he argues, we cannot be complacent about concerted attempts to undermine the electoral process, and the threats to the rule of law in the years ahead.

Eight months into his presidency, how is Joe Biden doing politically? How should we understand the current dynamics in the Democratic and Republican parties? What key things should we look for as we head toward the midterm elections in 2022? To consider these questions, we are joined by veteran Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, a shrewd and incisive analyst of our politics and our parties. As Trippi sees it, and noting Liz Cheney’s removal from House leadership, the Republican Party is locked in to a series of loyalty tests around Donald Trump, which diminish the party's appeal to independent voters. The Democrats' problem is they are divided, and currently facing quarrels in Congress between the moderate and progressive wings of the party. For the Democrats to succeed in the midterms, in Trippi’s view, Biden must be perceived as generally successful at managing the concrete challenges the country faces, while the Democrats in Congress must grow up and help Biden pass popular legislation. Further, the Democra

Donald Kagan (1932 - 2021), who passed away this summer, was a preeminent historian of both the ancient and modern worlds. In 2015, we were privileged to host Professor Kagan for a wide-ranging Conversation about the major themes of his work. We are pleased to re-release the Conversation here. In the Conversation, Kagan and Kristol discuss what humanity's greatest wars—from the Peloponnesian War to World War II—can teach us about the nature of war and the sources of human conflict. Kagan also discusses his education in history at Brooklyn College, his groundbreaking work on Thucydides, and his distinguished teaching career at Yale. Finally, Kristol and Kagan discuss the state of the study of history and the liberal arts more generally in America.

How will the American withdrawal from Afghanistan influence US-China relations? How should we understand China’s geostrategic ambitions—and the threat to Taiwan in particular? How is America dealing with the challenge? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Princeton professor Aaron Friedberg, author of A Contest for Supremacy and the forthcoming Getting China Wrong. Friedberg explains how Americans often have misunderstood and underestimated the challenge from China on political, economic, and technological fronts. Friedberg calls for an integrated approach in which the US, in concert with allies, develops an alternative to the current paradigm—building and developing networks of industrial, technological, and political capacities in order to defend ourselves and Western principles. This is a timely and important Conversation that can help us think through the many political choices required to sustain a more effective strategy for countering the threat posed by China.

Civilian control over the military, and a non-partisan military, have been bedrock principles of American government since the founding of the country. In recent times, however, significant strains have developed in our civil-military relations. Why should we be alarmed about the growing politicization of the military in America? Why must partisan neutrality prevail, and why must civilians avoid using the military to advance their own partisan causes? In this Conversation, Eric Edelman shares his perspective. Edelman organized an important letter in January 2021, signed by all living former secretaries of defense, reminding military and civilians at the Defense Department that the peaceful transfers of power...are hallmarks of our democracy. The need for such a letter, according to Edelman, underscores how the bedrock principles of American civil-military relations have been challenged, especially within the last years, both from within the ranks and in our politics. In this timely and urgent discussion, Edel

Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to defend the ratification of the Constitution, The Federalist has long been recognized as a fundamental text in American political thought. Yet the complexity and subtlety of The Federalist as a work often is not sufficiently appreciated. In this Conversation, David Epstein, author of The Political Theory of The Federalist, (1984), shares his perspective on why The Federalist should be taken seriously as a work of political thought, and on its enduring importance. Epstein guides us through central themes including representation, the separation of powers, the roles of interests and ambition in politics, and how popular government can be made to be good government. Throughout, we come to see the complex character of The Federalist—and its sometimes surprising point of view on these fundamental aspects of American government. Finally, Epstein and Kristol consider the ways in which The Federalist, irrespective of our own political choices or policy pref

Where do things stand with Covid-19? How has the emergence of the Delta variant changed the situation? How might things look in the US as we had into the fall? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Jha explains why the highly-contagious Delta variant, coupled with greater-than-anticipated resistance to vaccines, now threatens a return to normalcy that seemed on track throughout the late spring. Today, all Americans have ready access to vaccines that are extraordinarily effective at preventing hospitalization and death. Jha stresses that exposure to Covid now is much more likely than just a few weeks ago, perhaps inevitable, so the choice in America now is binary: to get vaccinated, or get infected. Jha and Kristol consider choices in public policy and in the private sector we face now including whether to mandate vaccines, the role of the CDC and FDA, and the global dimension of the pandemic—and the ramifications of these choic

First released in June 2014, this Conversation is the first in our series of Conversations with Harvard government professor Harvey Mansfield, one of the leading students of political philosophy. In it, Mansfield reflects on the importance of studying political philosophy and discusses, in brief, his work on great thinkers of political philosophy such as Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Niccolo Machiavelli. He also discusses the influence of Leo Strauss on his work. This Conversation offers a great introduction to Mansfield's thought and work. It is very much worth revisiting for those who heard it at the time and it serves as a great introduction to Mansfield's work for those who may be new to it.

The Biden Administration has announced that all American troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of August. This would, in Biden’s words, bring to end America’s longest war. In this Conversation, Eric Edelman shares his perspective on the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. While recognizing the challenge of rallying the nation throughout our long involvement in a difficult country, Edelman raises doubts about the wisdom of removing America’s small footprint in Afghanistan. Edelman considers some potentially dangerous possibilities that might follow from the withdrawal—including greater destabilization of Pakistan and the threat of loose nukes getting into the hands of jihadists. Finally, Kristol and Edelman consider constructive things the Biden administration can do to reassure allies in the region that America will remain involved even after troops leave Afghanistan.

Where do the Republican and Democratic parties stand almost six months into the Biden presidency? How could changes in emphasis and legislative priorities for each party influence the direction of our politics? What are possible paths forward for the parties' electoral coalitions as we look toward the 2022 midterms and beyond? In this Conversation, Sean Trende, Senior Elections Analyst for RealClearPolitics and Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, shares his perspective on the latest polls and his analysis of the dynamics of the parties in this era of polarization. He presents a fascinating account of the challenges and opportunities facing the parties and candidates, today, and reflects on what we can learn from American political history.