It's Tuesday, October 28, 2025, and welcome back to Goodfellows at Hoover Institution

broadcast examining history, economics, and geopolitics, and a few other matters in the news.

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

I'll be your moderator today, joined by two of my colleagues who we jokingly refer to as Goodfellows. That would be the economist John Cochran and former presidential national security advisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. Gentlemen, it's good to see you. Hey, great to see everybody. HR, especially good to see you. Your Philadelphia Philadelphia Phillies kind of unceremoniously exited from the playoffs, and you disappear from the show. I hope the two were not linked. Oh, my goodness. It throws it away. And the Dodgers have won. How do you not go to first? How do you not go to first? Okay, I don't want to talk about it.

Okay, we will talk about that.

We have a few weightier issues of baseball to get in today, a two-part show for you.

The second part of the show, we're going to go trick-or-treating. Let me explain that. I'm going to give you a series of issues and you're going to tell me whether they are tricks as in bad news or treats as in good news.

But first we're going to go to a topic

that's a little less seasonal here on this show, something we talk about year round. And that is

the Great Powers competition. And joining us for this discussion is our Hoover colleague Michael

McFall. Mike McFall is the Peter and Helen being senior fellow here at the Hoover

Institution, as well as a professor of political science and director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogley Institute of it for International Studies at

Stanford University. From January 2012 to February 2014, Mike McFall served as a U.S. ambassador

in the Russian Federation. Before becoming ambassador, he served for three years as a special

assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council. He joins us today to talk about his latest book, literally hot off the presses as today is its release date, the book's title Autocrats v. Democrats, China, America, Russia, and the new global disorder. Mike, welcome back to Goodfellows, and thanks for joining us in your sleep-deprived state. I understand you're up to all hours watching that and sippin baseball game last night. Well, I couldn't make it to the end, but thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. My pleasure, Mike. We'll get to the book in a moment, but first, let's talk about the complicated relationship that is Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, the United States, Russia, and Ukraine. Last week, Mike, there was supposed to be a summit in Budapest between Trump and Putin. It does not happen. The Treasury Department promptly sanctions two Russian oil companies. Now there's the ongoing question about whether or not Ukraine's going to get long-range tomahawk missiles. President Trump says no, saying it's too complicated to teach him how to fire them.

But NATO Secretary General says it's still in place.

So Mike, tell us what's coming next.

Well, first of all, I don't know.

And talking about President Trump with H.R. McMaster on the line, I'm going to defer to him.

He understands the president, our president, a lot better than I do.

I do know what I think is good

for America's national interests and is good for small D Democrats around the world, which is

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