Every week. Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books, great men, and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio.
Morning glory and evening Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. That music means, of course, it's time for the Hillsdale Dialogue, last broadcast hour of the week on the Salem news channel, the Salem Radio Network. All of our wonderful affiliates. I can't go anywhere, literally anywhere, without anyone talking to me about Larry Arnn and Hillsdale dialogues. So thank you all for listening and endorsing the idea that, you know, once in a while you want to hear a serious conversation
with a serious person. And that includes Doctor Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College. Next week is a special week. Don't miss it. It's commencement week. We're talking about commencement the week thereafter. We're coming back to Churchill. But this week we got too much news to do. Doctor, I know you're done with your school year, and so I hope you're relaxing and planning on a wonderful vacation. And you know, I go into Alaska, they got, you know,
down south to the to the islands. Where are you headed?
Well, I'm working we have a college cruise early next month that's going to Norway. But you know, it's a I lead a cursed life, as do you. Uh, everybody at the college except we who sort of manage the college. There's a vast sigh of relief. And I do that for about two days, and then I start remembering, oh yeah, we got to finish the year and get ready for next year. So everyone hopes that.
When Doctor Aaron does a college cruise, that's the hardest work that he does because I've seen it and he cannot walk down the hallway. He cannot walk down the hallway without having to talk about Socrates and Aristotle. So it's really not a normal experience, is it? It's not normal.
It's fun. I like, you know, I've, I've, we've done 22 or 3 cruises. You've been on one of them or two of them. I've never been on a cruise except under those circumstances and probably will never go. But uh, you know, it is, it is work, but it's good work. And, uh, that's, you know.
It's an unusual.
Experience.
And Mrs. Mrs. Yarn makes it all come together for you because she does protect you as fetching. Mrs. Hewitt protects me from talking too much endlessly. 24 over seven. Well, let's do the news this week, next week, commencements, and the week thereafter, we'll go back to Churchill. I want to begin with your assessment of the big summit last week. It ended this week between President Trump and General Secretary XI in China. We've had a lot of summits. This
one was a big one, though. We don't have any takeaways, really. What did you think of it?
Well it's monumental. There's more than one way to think about what's going on in the world right now. And the enemies of the current administration say we don't have a plan. We're just stumbling around being aggressive. Some intelligent people I know think this, and I rather think it. We're in a competition with China. We're stronger than China. We have a bigger economy than China. It is growing about as fast as China's. Now they have a rapidly
declining population, replacing it with robots. Above all, they're a despotism. They get 70% of their oil from abroad. And the two prime places have been Venezuela and Iran. And darned if we don't have something going on in both those places that adjusts things. So it could be that there's something strategic here, and I hope so. And pray so we don't know how the Iran war is going to finish. We don't know how it's going to affect the midterms. And that's I would bet some money that Iran is
playing for the midterms. DeLay delay delay. Keep the gas prices up. Maybe they'll be successful at that. But it could be that what's behind all this is a strategy to diminish China's threat to us.
Uh, you know, a year ago, over a year ago, you and I talked about Churchill and Gallipoli. That's two years ago now. And so Churchill always had his eye on the narrowest waters. Where were the narrowest waters? The straits control everything. Well, we're concerned right now with Hormuz and the Red sea, but China depends upon the Strait of Malacca more than anything else. And we got that
one in a pincer movement. So they can't really be they can't really be indifferent to Iran closing down the strait, can they?
No, I don't think so. Now they're you know, if you want to look on the bad side of the ledger, they just produce much more than we do, manufacture much more than we do. And there are enormous steps being taken all over America, not just by the president and his administration to beef that back up. You know, and I I'm very fond of saying that in a in a competition with a despotism, there's an asset that we have that it's very difficult for them to match, however
much they spy on us, however hard they try. And right now that asset has names. The names are Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey and Alex Karp and Peter Thiel. And what these guys are is geniuses at making things. They love to do that. I read in passing this week that the Defense Department has just signed a big contract with Palantir, which is, uh, is that no Anduril and Palmer Luckey company to make. And that's from the Lord of the rings to make, uh, cheaper drones. And,
you know, he's pretty good. And so, and they invent stuff and, you know, if you, if you look at, uh, I read a long article about war the other day, uh, Paul Ray, the Ray Ray who's been on your show, who's one of our guys. Very good. He sent me, he sends me the most interesting articles. And the article
is by a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And it says that, uh, war is going to be much more fluid than it's ever been, and that weapons are going to be adapted near the battlefield on a daily basis. And it reminded me of reading about Elon Musk's unboxed manufacturing process, which. Which is a system of parallel assembly lines making. Each one makes about a quarter of the car. And they all move at speed and one slows down. It doesn't slow down the others and and they snap
together at the end. And they're self-contained, each one of them as possible. So the connections are fewer and it takes in Detroit it takes 65 seconds. I read to make a car and Elon is making them at 31 seconds, and he's trying to get it down to five seconds, a car off the assembly line every five seconds. And so I think the, you know, the world is speeding up and that's dangerous, but we should have some assets in regard to that. We should be able to adapt
because we're decentralized in our ways. Not as much as we used to be, which I regret, but still, effectively, were that.
I want to pause for a moment on the Barracuda because I interviewed Senator Collins yesterday. She's chairwoman of appropriations, and they've approved a big, big dollop of money to the Department of Defense war that went to Palantir, to Anduril, and Anduril said, we're just going to make the missiles, and then we're going to sell them to you, the Barracuda. And it's a cruise missile, and it's a little bit slower and a little bit smaller, but it's a whole
lot less expensive. And we're going to build a thousand a year for you. And this is a complete reversal of the way we've ever done it with the Pentagon at first time ever, that we're going to do this on scale, which is people are going to venture, capitalize munitions and then try and sell them to the Pentagon. It makes a world of sense to me. What does it make it? Does it make sense to you?
That's the basic premise of Anduril. Uh, and that is he didn't, you know, the, the way the cycle works, you have to step back a little bit in the 60s and 50s the most innovative stuff, uh, for military was invented by the Pentagon with contractors, but they led, they were like, we used to always talk about offshoots to the private economy, into the, into the offshoots from the military and the space program into the private economy. Correct.
And that's innovative. Yeah. Well, I used to go to conferences at the Naval Postgraduate School every year, run by a guy named Andy Marshall, who was the longest serving. Oh, really? Now, he.
You knew Andy.
Marshall well for a long time. Yeah. Oh, he.
Was the big brain of the Pentagon. The big brain.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And what those conferences were about were about how much the present has changed and how much the future is likely to change. And one of the key points was we now read in the paper about the inventions that are going to dominate war, and we hadn't thought of them yet, you see. And so this thing where you got, you know, you know, the like what was the computer in 1960? It was something
that filled up a room. And you remember when, uh, we're old now, so we can remember things like this. And it's not that long ago, Cray made the fastest computer in the world, and we were always worried if somebody else was catching up. Now it's lots of little computers. Even a data center is thousands of little computers. And so everything's decentralized. You know, it's one reason I think we should decentralize our government more.
Amen to that. I'll be right back with Doctor Larry Arnn, all things Hillsdale, by the way, at hillsdale.edu. All the dialogues@hughforhillsdale.com. And the president was talking about Iran yesterday. I've been talking about Iran with President Arnn right after this. Stay tuned. Welcome back America. I get to talk to presidents on this show. Two weeks ago, I talked to President Trump. And every week I talk to President Arnn. President Arnn
is the president of Hillsdale College, all things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu. President makes a lot more sense to me because he goes slower with me than President Trump does. But, doctor, President Trump said one thing about a half dozen times to me, which was neither new nor original, but he's repeated it probably 20 more times since then and 100 times before then, which is Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. He's kind
of a genius at messaging. He gets one message and he repeats it until everybody in the world hears it. What do you make? Right now, we've got reports that Iran is refusing to turn over their enriched uranium. And I think he just sits back and says, they're not going to get a nuclear weapon. What do you make of this situation?
Well, um, I don't know. Of course, uh, it's unknown. Um, but I think we're in a position to get them. Uh, if we keep the political will together to get them. And the failure of political will, if it happens, will not be happening, I would guess in the heart and mind of Donald Trump. Uh, I think if we have to go back at him again, I think it'll be devastating. I think we, you know, we've hurt them really badly.
Now we're looking for littler things than we were last last time, and we're looking for a bunch of enriched uranium. And I wouldn't be surprised if we couldn't go get it if we need to. I think he wants him. You know, he and remember this. So messaging. I want to repeat one point this the war aim here is not as it has been in the past to make that country into a democracy. On the argument that we cannot be free until everyone or all the dangerous people are free.
Correct.
And the reason I don't like this argument, although it's a fond hope, is that it's not possible to do because you can't really do democracy for somebody else. And, and so that's just like saying we can't be safe. Well, we can't be fully safe, but we can probably be safer if we restrain Iran. And we are doing that and have done that with Venezuela maybe about to do that with Cuba. And if we if we do those things at a cost we can afford, then the country
will be safer. So it looks like strategy to me.
And he also said when Trump talks, he also said to me, they're crazy. They're lunatics. And he repeated that crazy and lunatic line 4 or 5 times, again using repetition to message. and that he never says that about G. He doesn't say that about Putin because totalitarians like those two, they don't have a fanatical theology that upholds dying. They have an ideology that's totalitarian, but it likes living. Do you think that's the one disadvantage we have dealing with Iran?
They are religious zealots and fanatics. That's very hard to deal with.
Well, make a distinction from the past. It's always easier of of. In his last great speech in the House of Commons, Churchill gave a speech about hydrogen bombs more powerful than the original atomic bombs. And he was frightened of them. And he invented in that speech the deterrent strategy that we have followed ever since with the deterrence strategy is if you use them on us, we'll use them on you. He says that that will work, except for a tyrant in the mood of Hitler in his bunker.
And and that that that he says is a blind. This is in 1955. He gives the speech. Right. Well of Stalin at the at the Iron Curtain speech in 1946, he says Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But I think there is a key. The Russian national interest. He said Russian, not Soviet. Right. In other words, he was attributed to Stalin. Gifts of calculation that might be relied on. If you placed the facts in such a condition that he would calculate not
to attack. He didn't give that to Hitler. Well, I think that you can probably give that to G. And you cannot give that to the whoever is ruling Iran this morning. I don't know who that is. I agree.
So I.
Agree. Yeah. So I think that's the distinction. And I think Trump makes that distinction. I think he's right about it.
Let me ask you about a distinction to the free people. Your in-laws not only fought Hitler, Mrs. Arden's parents, they endured Hitler's bombings and they endured seven years of war, six years of war. Americans are complaining about gas prices being up $2. They're not as high as Biden, but they're still up. Does the West have the capacity to endure a little bit of pump pain for 3 to 4 months in order to bring down a nuclear threat to zero? What do you think?
Well, I don't you know, we we'll see. Right. I mean, we're going to need it. I mean and and you know, it's it's one of those choices. The weakness of any human being in any political regime is the difficulty of sacrificing the now for the later. And, you know, this is all this stuff is doubtful. Will it work? And we we won't know ever what the world would be like if we hadn't done these things right. We don't know what the world would be like if Biden had
not become president, because he did. And so it it, you know, he and the midterms are, you know, they don't look great right now. And the history doesn't indicate that they will be great. But we don't know the answer to that either right now. And all one can do is his best and make the arguments. I regret the I regret three amendments to the Constitution. The 16th, 17th and 22nd. 16th is the income tax. The 17th is the direct election of senators, and the 22nd is
term limits for the president. And it's not that I want presidents to serve three terms. I want them in their second term to be able to threaten it because it makes them it makes them more formidable. All of them. Any of them. And so I, you know, you elect the guy, you give him a run, right? If you don't like him, vote him out. but the idea that he can't run again is a temptation not to think hard enough about the next election. I'm not accusing Donald
Trump of that. In fact, I think he's probably thinking pretty hard about it. But, uh, I'm saying that there's that temptation there, and it'd be better if it weren't there.
Well, I also have to just say you're either for prohibition or you're against it. So there's one other amendment you didn't like, and I suspect it's the one that prohibited the use of alcohol, not the one that got rid of the prohibition. So I'm just going to add a fourth to your list. AM I right on that guess? Well.
No, no, they fixed that. Right. So they got two.
Do you regret giving 18 year olds the vote?
Yeah, probably.
So do I.
Yeah. I mean, the argument you know, 16 year olds now. Right. And the argument that if you're old enough to, to die in the in the military, you're old enough to vote is a strong argument. So probably I said. Uh, I, I, I do think that, uh, I think that, you know, we make, we, you know, as a rule, I think remember, I work for a living with young people and, uh, they're a good bunch. Right? I'm very privileged with the
ones I work with, but they're young. Right. And one of the ways they get older is they don't become too worldly too fast. Like what? What do you do in this age of social media where they hear every kind of claim, tell them to read a book? You know, it takes time to read a book. Learn what it.
We'll come back to that very subject because I've been talking with you about Graham Plattner and his online presence. When we return, the candidate for the Democrats in Maine cruel and vicious, sexist and bigoted and their nominee. Stay tuned. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Uh, doctor Larry Arnn is my guest. All things Hillsdale are collected@hillsdale.edu. They got lots of free courses, including a new one on classical
logic and rhetoric. They've got every Hillsdale dialogue that Doctor Aaron and I and his colleagues have done for many, many years over@hughforhillsdale.com. Doctor, I was on Fox News yesterday. I was asked to comment on Graham Platner, and I held up the Democrat opposition research file, which was done from January to April. It's the most toxic thing I've ever said. Then Janet Mills dropped out and now the Republicans are dropping their oppo. And he did not do
this as an 18 to 20 year old. He's not merely cruel and verbally abusive and bigoted and homophobic, and now he's sadistic. And that seems to be paying off for him in the fundraising world. You've got El-Sayed running up there in Michigan, and he's out and out anti-Semitic, and we got candidates in the Democratic Party or anti-Semitic down in Texas. What in the world is happening to the New Democratic Party?
Well, the extremes, you know, they have a voice. Part of part of it's social media. It's you know, one thing that strikes me is that I used to go around saying. There's only two kinds of people who ever got elected president of the United States high, previously elected public officials and famous generals. And now Donald Trump. He's still the only exception. But he you know, that became
possible for a lot of reasons. His personal qualities are serious. But, you know, the media and social media the second time, especially. So these guys, you know, and there's a, there's a, in a, in a divided country, if 10% move some way that can make a difference, 10% is not a lot. But, you know, if the country's 51, 49 or 50, 5,010% is a huge amount. So they, you know, I mean, right now the Labor Party is collapsing in in Britain,
I'm happy to report. And they got a massive majority in the parliament, but they got 36% of the vote. And so that's a thing, right? There's there is a part of the population that listens to crazy things, and it is on both the left and the right, I think more on the left than the right.
And what do you do on campus with your kids? How do you teach my kids? I mean, you're 18 to 22 year old cohort. What do you explain to them about speech and discipline in speech, and the habit of not being vulgar and the habit of finding humor the way Churchill did through art, not through profanity.
Yeah. Well, that's a big thing, right? So first of all, what do we do? Everything we do is to help them become serious human beings. And that means morally and intellectually serious and serious. People learn and think before they act. And so that's the whole curriculum. I mean, the liberal arts curriculum from the time of Socrates aims for that.
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is about lately we notice, you know, I had a big meeting with much kids, you know, because they were asking questions about Israel because they, you know, here on the internet that it's illegitimate and that, you know, and it was a very interesting conversation. It was a very good conversation. But, you know, I happen to know
quite a lot about the founding of modern Israel. And I know some things about the origins of the Jewish faith, which are, you know, what, the first step in the formation of Western civilization, the covenant with Abraham at a time when religion was tribal and familial and clannish. God says, I will be your God and you will be my people. And this will be a blessing to all the peoples on the face of the earth. That's like an earthquake in a time when there wasn't anything like that, right?
And that's 1500, 2000 years before Socrates. So I told him that. And that was, you know, that's interesting. And then I happened to know the steps in the founding of modern Israel and what Lebanon and Syria and Kuwait. I'm naming them Saudi Arabia. I can count them on my fingers. Iran and Jordan were all founded in the same set of international movements that produced the state of Israel.
So one of them is legitimate. They all are. And so they're carved out of the Ottoman Empire in exchange for a promise that if you will fight for us, Britain and France, then we will give you states out of the Ottoman Empire, which will collapse was it had long been collapsing, but now will collapse because they joined the Germans. So that's how those things came to be. Well, I told them, all right. And I said, you know, you got to read a book before you make up
your mind about stuff like this. And it'll take years.
And I hope they, I hope they pick the peace to end all peace, which is about our friend Churchill having the deciding vote on those maps. Don't go anywhere, America. I'll explain that on the other side and a couple other things, but Doctor Larry Arnn except the hillsdale.edu or Q for hillsdale.com. Stay with me. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, doctor. And I want to pick up on that last segment. I mentioned a book, A Peace to End the peace to end all peace. It was a
story of the aftermath of World War One. When Churchill took over the Colonial Office, settled the Irish Civil War and then went to find the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and drew the lines. And I can't remember the name of the Lady Edith something, who was the the mastermind who worked with him. But did those kids know that Churchill was the map maker?
No, no. And but remember, remember what one's education is like. First of all, when you get old like us, you know a lot and you know more about what you don't know than you used to when you're young. Like I said at one point in passing that the first Zionist in the late 19th century in Europe were not particularly religious people. And Israel's a very religious country now. But then a young man said, okay, then, what's a
Jew if they're not particularly religious? And I said, that's such a great question, because, you know, if Christian Christianity is a Christian, is a is a religion of belief. If you believe you're a Christian, if you're not, you don't. And I said, so great question. I said, but what the Jews are is a people. And they've been somehow kept themselves together for what is it now? Let's call it 1500. You know.
I was going to say 3500 to 4000 years. Yeah.
Yeah. And and they are people, which means, by the way, that they are related like a family. And they are united by traditions and customs that have proved very resilient through every kind of change in the ancient city. Like if a city is destroyed, they destroy the temple and they sell the, uh, they kill the men or, and, or, and sell the women and children into slavery. And the city was no more. And that's not what happened to the Jews. You know, some of the some of the
greatest of the Psalms are written in captivity. And, you know, some of the greatest stories in the Old Testament is stories of their return after captivity. Nehemiah, Ezra and Nehemiah. Right. So they've always been what God calls a stiff necked people. And, uh, they've held together. And, uh, you know, one of the reasons Hitler hated them was they laid claim to, you know, he didn't like Christians either. They laid claim to a
God who was above him. He didn't like that, but he also didn't like them, that they had some kind of international identity. Right. In other words, in whatever country you are, you can be a Jew by sort of family reasons and tradition reasons in whatever country you are. You can be a Christian. Indeed. If you read the New Testament, you'll find out that religious freedom is the fundamental freedom because Jesus doesn't set up a kingdom. So whatever kingdom you're in has got to leave you alone.
And the acts of disobedience. There's a lot in the New Testament about you have to obey the law. But every time there's an entry in the book of acts, there's an act of disobedience. It's always because they tell the disciples, stop talking about this stuff. And they say, we won't get to. We are right, and we must. You see. So the point is, monotheism is perforce transnational. And tyrants don't like it, right? Because they don't like
people having claims of authority outside them. And that's the problem, right?
I'm glad.
You asked.
I'm glad you had that conversation with him. There has recently arisen in DC the buzz that Justice Alito is going to retire again. And I have my favorites. One of them is David Strauss, who's a judge up there in the eighth Circuit. And he was one of Trump's original picks. And he's an originalist originalist that Clarence Thomas Clark. And he's always right. Even when he's losing. He's right. He's in dissent. And he's always agreeing pretty much with Trump.
And so I think he'll be on a short list. And then you got any particular reason, like I said, well, he's Jewish. And they say, well that's affirmative action. I said, no, I like a guy who goes to church every week and who's aware of his past. And he had grandparents who survived the Holocaust. And I like the fact that he's both committed to his faith, but he's also committed to the Constitution. And we got to remind people it's perfectly possible to do both again and again and again
and again. And so I hope your students walked away with that. We do have to come back to the the decline of the Labor Party. So don't go anywhere, America, because there was an earthquake last week in the United Kingdom. A political earthquake, and doctor knows more about that than anyone. So stay tuned to the Hillsdale Dialogue. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, all things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu. Hugh for hillsdale.com. Doctor, what happened to labor? They got wiped out.
Well, uh, you know, they're not very good. And, uh, the swings, you know, this is a big one, by the way. You know, uh, they used to have in the C. By the way, I know more about it than anyone except someone who knows a great deal about it, but I know a fair amount about it. They used to have this swingometer. Right. And like, and it's, you know, all this is measured in seats, popular vote, you know, who gets the most pop, which individual gets the most
popular vote? Not very much is decided in Britain that way. So if the public opinion loses two points, that translates into so many seats in so many swing districts. And so usually small change can make a big difference in majorities in Parliament. And these elections were local elections, councils, elections and things like that. This was a big swing. This was a lot of points. Right? And so it was just a wipe out. And it was a wipe
out in Scotland and Wales especially, which are Labour strongholds. England, the biggest of the parts of the United Kingdom are the Tory Conservative strongholds. Except now they're weak there and reform is stronger. So the reform and and Tories didn't do great in Scotland or Wales. The Greens did great. A minor party and you know there'll be. Scottish Nationalist party did better. And there'll be a resurrection of the
idea of Scotland seceding from the United Kingdom. If this continues on this path, that'll be the next thing I predict. And there's talk of it already. So I you know, I think it's a mess. Right. And the question before the house. You just look at what's most likely is can Nigel Farage and reform make a political majority? Because if they can.
They do a deal with Badenoch. Do you think. Because if those two if Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, who's the leader of the Tories, can make a deal to divide up the constituencies and not compete against each other, we have less than a minute. Does that happen? Can they agree on that? Because they could win in 2029. If that's the case.
Yeah they might. They've done it before by the way. And they felt betrayed. The reform people felt betrayed by it. So there's an obstacle there. But Kemi Badenoch is very good. And you know and another another resistance that is the Conservative Party in Britain is prides itself on being the oldest political party in the world. And so what a come down to make a deal with reform. And right now reforms are hit in the pro in the polls.
It would probably mean Nigel Farage would be the Prime Minister.
Not really a come down if you understand their what the Tories ought to have become in their ten years in government, but didn't because they were led by less than brilliant statesmen. Doctor Larry Arnn, thank you. We will talk again next week about commencements. Near and far, but especially in Hillsdale. And then we're back to Churchill. So don't don't despair, you Churchill addicts. We'll be back with the memoir of the Second World War and their finest hour in two weeks.
Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to hillsdale.edu.