It's Monday, February 10th, 2025, and welcome back to Goodfellows, a Hoover Institution

broadcast examining social, economic, political, and geopolitical concerns.

I'm Bill Whalen, I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow.

I'll be your moderator today, joined by two-thirds for our usual compliments, sitting next

to me, the historian Sir Neil Ferguson, sitting next to Sir Neil, the economist John Cochran.

Now, normally joining us for our shows is Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.

I'm a little concerned about the General at this hour.

We were texting him during the Super Bowl last night. HR is a son of Philadelphia, huge Eagles fan, and we texted during the game.

He's vanished since the game ended.

So I don't know if he's out celebrating in New Orleans, if he got picked up on Broad Street

for riding.

What do we think HR is at this hour?

He guesses?

Partying on, but he deserves it.

Let's focus on the very positive, and that is in HR's absence.

We are honored to have joining us today, back by very popular demand.

I kid you not, we get a clamoring for him constantly.

Hoover Institution's senior fellow historian, all around, very smart guy who's going to correct us all on the errors of our ways.

Please welcome Stephen Cochin to the show. Dr. Cochin, good to see you.

Same. I'm no substitute for HR, but I understand the Philadelphia team is green.

Well played, well played. So Stephen, on our last show, we talked about the Trump presidency and we talked about the flurry of executive orders. But one thing we did not get into was the concept of American power and how American power operates in this new presidency. You and I had a conversation a few days ago about this. And you shared a belief that America is not a power in decline right now.

And you shared some figures on consistency in America's GDP, America's role in the world, and so forth.

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