Trump Tariff Outcomes: Is the “Less-Worse” Case a Best-Case Scenario?
What’s the most likely outcome for President Trump’s tariff strategy – trading partners capitulating, America’s economy and exceptionalism crumbling, or something in the middle?
Hoover fellows and economists Michael Bordo and Mickey Levy discuss a recent paper they’ve published on the history of tariff impositions and four possible outcomes (none of them are good). Their conclusion: the odds favor a “less-worse” case of 12%-14% tariffs and deals with Canada and Mexico, with a “small but cumulative impact” on longer-run potential growth (maybe a mild recession) while the U.S. retains its global dominant status.
Recorded on June 6, 2025
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44:26
California Update: (Misguided) Plans, Trains, and Automobiles
What do an electric-vehicle mandate, a structural budget deficit, and chronic homelessness and affordable housing woes have in common? The answer: they are policy headaches likely awaiting California’s next governor.
Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to discuss the latest in the Golden State including flaws in Governor Newsom’s plan requiring all new automobiles sold in California by 2035 to be zero-emission vehicles, another financial blow to California’s high-speed rail project, ongoing struggles with homeless and affordable agenda, plus a curious lack of celebrities auditioning for statewide offices. After that: 95th-birthday tributes to Clint Eastwood (May 31) and Hoover’s own Thomas Sowell (June 30).
Recorded on June 5, 2025.
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56:22
California Update: The World’s 4th-Largest Economy – and the Home of “Shaq State”?
New data points to California as the world’s fourth-largest economy, supplanting Japan (with India likely soon surpassing the Golden State). What does that say about California as an economic powerhouse and a nation-state plagued by a dark economic underside (inflation, high cost of living, middle-class squeeze)?
Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, join Hoover’s assistant director of content development Jonathan Movroydis to discuss California’s new global standing, the impact of looming Trump tariffs, the reemergence of former vice president Kamala Harris as she ponders whether to run for governor in 2026, political intrigue past, present, and future in Los Angeles, the ongoing struggles of California’s high-speed rail project, plus basketball great Shaquille O’Neal becoming the general manager of Sacramento State’s men’s basketball team – and whether state government likewise could benefit from a star athlete’s intervention.
Recorded on May 1, 2025.
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53:09
Tariff-ic Or Tariff-ied? What Polling Says About Trump 2.0
Donald Trump’s first 100 days since returning to office have been prolific – the most executive orders issued in the early days of a presidency – and seemingly in a constant state of political turbulence.
What do the polls indicate about Trump’s performance to date? David Brady and Douglas Rivers, Hoover Institution senior fellows, and Stanford University political scientists, discuss how various policy choices – tariffs, immigration enforcement, legal imbroglios – have affected Trump’s approval, plus where a struggling Democrat Party stands as both parties ponder a midterm election still 550 days ahead.
Recorded on April 30, 2025.
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55:02
Elective Surgery: Obamacare’s 15th Anniversary, Federal Healthcare Reform, and California’s Medi-Cal Woes
Once a policy lightning rod that ended political careers, the Affordable Care Act (aka, “Obamacare”) has proven to be remarkably resilient with last month marking the 15th anniversary of its being signed into law. Lanhee Chen, the Hoover Institution’s David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies and co-chair of Hoover’s Healthcare Policy Working Group, explains how the ACA managed to survive despite power shifts in Washington, what areas of healthcare Congress should address in 2025, and California’s inability to cover the cost of its Medi-Cal program (the state equivalent of Medicaid) due to rising demand among seniors and undocumented residents.
Recorded on April 3, 2025.
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Fifteen Years Later: The ACA Has an HSA Problem by Lanhee J. Chen Tom Church Daniel L. Heil
Matters of Policy & Politics is a Hoover Institution podcast devoted to matters of governance and balance of power at home and abroad. It is hosted by Hoover fellow Bill Whalen.
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