You walk us through what you were thinking about why you decided to put a 90-day pause.

Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line.

They were getting yippy, you know?

They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid, unlike these champions.

Because we have a big job to do.

No other president would have done what I did. No other president. I know

the presidents. They wouldn't have done it. It's Thursday, April 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. And guess what? I have all three

good fellows in the House with me today. And our good fellows are, of course, Sir Neil Ferguson, an eminent

historian, the economist John Cochran, and former Presidential National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General

HR McMaster, Neil H.R. and John are all Hoover Senior Fellows. So gentlemen, we set up this show a few weeks ago to be a mailbag show. We asked our viewers for questions. They more than rewarded us. I'd like to thank everybody who bothered to write in. If we didn't get to your question, I sincerely apologize. Just too many questions and too little time. That said, we have a big news story on top of us as well, which is tariffs and the

world economy, the United States future relationships with his allies as well as China. So we're

going to try to wed the two. So let's begin by giving you two questions related to tariffs and

then let's get into it. So the first question, bear with me from John, it's a little lengthy,

but he writes, President Trump seems to be basing his belief in using tariffs,

at least in part on economic results from his first term.

I'd like to hear the good fellows, especially John,

discuss how the U.S. economy did so well during Trump's first term,

even though he imposed tariffs.

Was it that other economic factors were so good that they overpowered the negative impacts of these tariffs? Was it that other economic factors were so good that they overpowered the negative

impacts of these tariffs? If so, what were those factors and why would this time be different?

...