Hoover Daily Report

Today, Hoover invites you to an event on the future of national security featuring leading practitioners in the field; Hoover scholars react to the electoral defeat of the proposed California billionaire wealth tax; and John Cogan explains how economic growth and federal spending restraint could balance the budget within 15 years, without drastic cuts to entitlement programs.  Hoover Daily Report...

Today, popular commentator Jonah Goldberg joins the GoodFellows to break down the midterms and likely priorities for the next Congress; Philip Zelikow reflects on the diplomacy required to achieve German unification; and, in a letter from the imagined perspective of Adam Smith, Ross Levine examines what the friendship between Smith and his philosophical peer David Hume can teach us about the value...

This Friday, Hoover invites you to a special live taping of Uncommon Knowledge; Stephen Kotkin explains why communist ideology itself creates the greatest risks for communist regimes; Bill Whalen and Lee Ohanian review the policy implications of the midterms in California and beyond; and Peter Robinson reflects on the meaning and legacy of the 1987 Berlin Wall Address that he wrote for President R...

Today, H.R. McMaster speaks with a former French ambassador to the US about the rise of the far right across Europe and recent social instability in France; Dominic Parker examines the forces influencing the location of data centers as well as opposition to such projects; and Jonathan Gienapp remembers the impactful constitutional vision of American Founder James Wilson. Hoover Daily Report | Nove...

Today, Victor Davis Hanson gives readers five takeaways from Tuesday’s result in the midterm elections. Joshua D. Rauh appears on MTS (Monitoring the Situation) to question the pledged “one-time” nature of the proposed Billionaire Tax Act. And Robert Hodrick argues that a future US debt crisis could accelerate the existing global desire to move away from US dollar hegemony. Hoover Daily Report | N...

Today, Stephen Kotkin shows how “junk history” untethered from actual historical facts can mislead policymakers and the public; Andrew Roberts speaks with Natalie Livingstone about her new book on women central to the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals following the Second World War; and Jonathan Rodden explains how the United States became divided between “blue” urban cores and “red” rural areas—and...

Today, David Kennedy and Niall Ferguson consider the modern presidency through the lens of earlier American political history; Victor Davis Hanson discusses President Trump’s second-term priorities and how his conduct in office may shape his legacy; and scholars and congressional staff convened by Hoover propose seven ways to make Medicare more cost-effective and efficient. Hoover Daily Report | N...

This Friday, we take a deep dive into the policy choices confronting Californians: Douglas Rivers and Michael Boskin analyze findings from two recent polls on policy preferences; Lee Ohanian provides a critical look at two measures that would increase taxation in California without addressing spending; and Lanhee Chen proposes a ballot initiative to make elections for California’s controller and t...

Today, Michael McConnell remembers the contributions of Founder and Chief Justice John Marshall to the development of constitutional governance in the United States; Justin Grimmer considers the potential costs and benefits of adding voter identification requirements to California law; and Jon Hartley speaks with a University of Chicago economics professor about the history of macroeconomics—and w...

Today, Joshua Rauh debates Berkeley’s Gabriel Zucman on CNBC about the merits of the proposed California wealth tax. John Cochrane explains why good intentions rarely translate into sound public policy. And Michael Bernstam says the deal with Russia for more diesel won’t lower prices for Americans. Hoover Daily Report | October 28, 2026

Today, Eugene Volokh and Orin Kerr discuss Flock surveillance cameras and the Fourth Amendment; leading scholars of military history come together at Hoover to discuss conflicts and deterrence challenges in Iran, Ukraine, China, and beyond; and just in time for Halloween, Michael Boskin identifies five “tricks” that find their way into debates over policy.  Hoover Daily Report | October 27, 2026

Today, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board rebuts criticisms of Hoover scholars’ research on the California wealth tax; those scholars—Joshua Rauh, Benjamin Jaros, Gregory Kearney, and Siddharth Gundapaneni—offer their own detailed response to these critiques; and John Cochrane argues that the time has come for serious reforms to European welfare states, if not a fundamental rethinking of the...

This Friday, Dan Wang reports on the ambitious effort to bring Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing expertise to the Arizona desert; Niall Ferguson and Michael McFaul each offer an appraisal of the Trump administration’s foreign policy; and Michael McConnell examines the role of the Supreme Court amid the political controversies of the second Trump term.   Hoover Daily Report | October 23, 2026

Today, the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal amplifies the research of Hoover scholars Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh on California’s Proposition 40 wealth tax; John Cochrane lays out foundational principles for designing and evaluating tax systems; and Niall Ferguson recalls the horrors of the Western Front in WWI, as well as how that conflict inspired Herbert Hoover to found the Hoover...

Today, Stephen Kotkin speaks with pioneering Stanford AI researcher Fei-Fei Li about her journey through academia and entrepreneurship to the forefront of spatial artificial intelligence; the GoodFellows discuss AI risks and policy with popular author and professor Cal Newport; and Niall Ferguson considers the possibility that mastery of AI might lead the United States and China to become new kind...

Today, Steven Davis honors the sacrifices of everyday American patriots that made independence from Great Britain a political reality; Lanhee Chen sits down with Andrew Roberts for a wide-ranging conversation on policy, history, and California’s future; and Condoleezza Rice speaks at Stanford about AI risks, Ukraine, and Israel.  Hoover Daily Report | October 20, 2026

Today, Victor Davis Hanson appears on Uncommon Knowledge to discuss his new book on Trump’s troubled years ahead of winning his second term as president. John Cochrane announces new papers he’s written on inflation control. Jean Cannon writes about an intrepid lawyer who helped free more than a thousand people imprisoned in Castro’s Cuba. And Brandice Canes-Wrone and coauthors explore the politica...

Today, Senior Fellow Valerie Ramey reflects on her time working as research assistant to new Nobel laureate and Senior Fellow Emeritus Robert E. Hall. Dinsha Mistree lauds the courage and gumption of Green Mountain Boy Ethan Allen. And Anne Neuberger unveils a new program to harden the cyber defenses of America’s most vulnerable pieces of infrastructure.   Hoover Daily Report | October 16, 2026

Today, a distinguished panel including the head of the UK’s Conservative Party discusses the influential legacy of Thomas Sowell; Sarah Anzia explains how hefty pension promises have created a fiscal crunch for many local governments in the United States; and Hoover announces a new cohort of Veteran Fellows, who will work with Hoover scholars to implement community-oriented projects addressing pol...

Today, Tsai Ing-wen, former president of Taiwan, discusses her country’s role in technology and geopolitics as well as her own approach to leadership; Hoover scholars explain the details and potential trade-offs of Proposition 38, a measure intended to advance health-focused scientific research; and Steven Davis discusses the intellectual contributions of his colleague Robert Hall, who this week w...

Today, David Henderson summarizes the scholarly contributions of this year’s Nobel Prize winners in economics; John Cochrane presents economic statistics to show why Americans are upset about the prices of many goods and services today; and Chester Finn discusses the motivation behind the development of Hoover’s Civic Profile tool. Hoover Daily Report | October 13, 2026

Today, Senior Fellow Robert Hall is awarded the 2026 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences; John Cochrane explains the significance of this prize award and Hall’s contributions to macroeconomics; and Peter Berkowitz lays out why, in his view, the United States will either “conserve liberty and virtue together or lose both.” Hoover Daily Report | October 12, 2026

This Friday, Elizabeth Economy speaks with an expert on Chinese technology about the state—and the stakes—of the race between China and the United States to develop frontier artificial intelligence capabilities; a defector explains how media brought into North Korea on flash drives and smuggled among the youth there has the potential to undermine the brutal Kim dictatorship; and Bill Whalen speaks...

Today, H.R. McMaster speaks with a former president of Peru about leadership lessons from his government service and subsequent study of philosopher Sir Francis Bacon; David Henderson connects the concept of consumer surplus to the conveniences of modern life; and Bill Whalen asks the price to electoral competition of a California ballot measure that would simply, yet powerfully, change how the st...

Today, a new paper from Hoover scholars suggests California’s proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act will face serious legal challenges if approved by voters in November. California Decides evaluates a ballot measure that would set up a fast lane for select California building projects, and the GoodFellows welcome Michael Auslin to talk about the Declaration of Independence and whether “the spirit of ’...