Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning?

And do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars, Madam Mayor?

Have you nothing to say today?

Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?

It's Wednesday, January 15, 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, and I come with both good news and bad news.

The good news is that two-thirds of our happy triumphant has rejoined us for this show.

So please welcome back, the historian Serial Ferguson and former presidential national security advisor,

Lieutenant General A.R. McChry, Mr. Chairman, good to see you.

All right, gentlemen, let's get right to it.

Let's talk about the change of power about to occur in Washington, D.C., the 46th President of United States, Joe Biden, soon to give way to the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump.

It's not the first time that an American president will begin a second term, but what is unique about this is that Trump is beginning a second non-consecutive term for the only second time the president has done this.

Neil, I turned to you with the big question for this show, and it's a two-part question.

Number one, what is the difference for Trump between a second term versus a second first term?

And building upon that, do we honestly believe that a 78-year-old leopard can change his spots?

In other words, do we think that Trump is going to pursue the second term with more discipline and a little more efficiency and a little more effectiveness?

Well, you know, there's some really fundamentally different dynamics, you know, from 2017 and

this year. And there's some things will be the same, right? So what has changed? Well, the world's a

much more dangerous place. And Neil and I've been talking about this for quite some time it's a dangerous place i think largely or probably uh most

importantly because of the coalescing of this axis of aggressors uh these are the two

...