Conversations with Bill Kristol

What did we learn about Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign from last week’s CNN town hall? How should we assess Ron DeSantis’s prospective candidacy so far? What are Joe Biden’s strengths and weaknesses as we head into the 2024 race? To discuss these questions, we are joined by veteran reporter and commentator A.B. Stoddard. Stoddard shares her perspective on why Trump remains the force in the Republican field—and how DeSantis has yet to live up to early expectations. Turning to the Democrats, Stoddard explains how outperforming expectations in the 2022 midterms helped Joe Biden to secure a lock on his party’s nomination. Nonetheless, she notes that many Democrats remain jittery about Biden’s age and prospects. As things stand, she argues, the improbable rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump seems likely despite being unpopular across a broad swath of the American public.

Where do things stand in Ukraine as the war enters its fifteenth month? What must Ukraine accomplish on the battlefield in its long-anticipated counteroffensive? What can the US and allies do to support Ukraine now? To discuss these questions we are joined again by Fred Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. Kagan notes that Russian forces have been seriously degraded in the war thanks to the impressive defense mounted by the Ukrainians. Nonetheless, the situation remains highly uncertain, and much depends on whether Ukraine succeeds in a counteroffensive in the months ahead. Kagan argues there is an urgent need for the US and allies to do more now to step up military and financial support for Ukraine as it attempts to drive Russia back from strategically vital territory. Kagan explains that a stalemate on the battlefield likely would enable a future Russian invasion of Ukraine—and also could have grave consequences geopolitically. The failure to support Ukraine toward some kind of victory, he argues, would set a dangerous precedent likely to be exploited by China and other adversaries around the globe.

What are the prospects for Biden, Trump, DeSantis, and other potential candidates as we head to 2024? How will the media respond to the challenges of covering presidential politics in the current era? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Dan Balz, chief correspondent of The Washington Post and a veteran analyst of American politics and the media. In a wide-ranging Conversation, Balz reflects on the ways in which both media and politics still are very much shaped by—and often orchestrated by—Donald Trump. The intensity of the interest in the former president especially compared to the current president underscores how unlikely it is we'll see a return to the pre-2015 political or media environment. Kristol and Balz also consider how 2024 may differ from previous races, and how that could affect both the strategies and coverage of Biden, Trump, DeSantis, and others.

The period between World War I and World War II has long been a reference point in foreign policy debates, yet much about the period remains in dispute. Why did the United States turn away from internationalism after the First World War? Could the US have shaped an enduring liberal world order in the 1920s? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Robert Kagan, the historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. According to Kagan, Usually the peace is lost at a time when the threats are not obvious, and the need to do something is not obvious. Drawing on his recent book The Ghost at the Feast, Kagan highlights the centrality of American leadership to any peaceful world order, and contends it was not inevitable the US would turn away from Europe and Asia in the 1920s. He draws particular attention to the interrelation of domestic politics to foreign policy, and considers the possibility of how under different domestic circumstances Woodrow Wilson’s internationalism might have succeeded. Kagan points to an enduring paradox of American foreign policy: Americans will not tolerate a real serious assault on liberalism in the world writ large, but they are perfectly willing to ignore what’s going on until that challenge appears unmistakably—and they feel they have no choice. Yet the decisions of the 1920s and 1930s, and of the last eighty years, reveal the profound consequences of inaction as well as action.

How serious a threat to the economy is the current turmoil in the banking sector? What are the prospects for a soft landing—or more turbulence ahead? How should we think about the challenge of combating inflation? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Harvard economist Jason Furman, who was deputy directory of the National Economic Council during the Financial Crisis and then served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in President Obama’s second term. In this Conversation, Furman shares his candid assessment of the current challenges in the macroeconomy: Unless you have [a] soft landing, which I think is unlikely, there’s a recession out there. I used to think the recession was more second half of this year or first half of next year. The banking crisis may move that forward, he says. Yet Furman explains how dynamic is the situation, and lays out several plausible scenarios as well as his views on the key indicators to look for in the months ahead. Furman also reflects on the American economy more broadly, and shares his perspective on the future of inflation and interest rates, debt and deficits, productivity, and immigration.

How has China responded to Russia’s War in Ukraine, and what lessons could the CCP draw from the course of the war? How has the war and other recent developments affected US-China relations—and how should the US and allies advance the cause of deterring China? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Princeton professor Aaron Friedberg. While China has been cautious about intervening directly on behalf of Russia in the war, Friedberg explains that much is at stake for the CCP in Vladimir Putin not losing. Friedberg argues that continued American and allied support for victory by Ukraine would have a strong effect in deterring China and its ambitions to reshape the geopolitical order. He notes that over the last few years Americans increasingly have come to understand the grave military and economic threat to the US posed by China. To meet this challenge, he argues the US must brace itself for a potentially long period of strategic competition with China—and work in concert with allies to develop new networks of military, technological, and political capacities.

One year into the war, where do things stand in Ukraine? What have we learned about the character of Ukraine, Putin’s war aims, the fault lines in European politics, and America's resolve? Why should the West continue to support Ukraine? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Anne Applebaum, a leading scholar of Ukraine and Pulitzer Prize winning historian. According to Applebaum, Ukraine’s impressive strength speaks to Ukraine’s virtues in defending itself—as a free country—through an appeal to liberal nationalism and patriotism. This is why an independent Ukraine represents such a threat to Putin’s regime. And Putin remains very clear about his war aims: the destruction of Ukraine as an independent nation. We must not allow this to happen, Applebaum argues, because a Russian victory not only would imperil Ukraine but also the whole European order, and embolden autocratic regimes like China around the globe. An expert analyst of European politics, Applebaum also reflects on responses to the war by European nations, and describes how current Polish-German relations present tensions in the alliance.

What were the major political and diplomatic issues that Israel’s founders faced in 1948? How did they inform the writing of Israel’s Declaration of Independence? What can Israel’s Declaration teach us about natural and historic rights, the relationship of religion and state, and the meaning of national sovereignty? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Neil Rogachevsky, a scholar of Israel studies and political thought at Yeshiva University in New York and co-author, with Dov Zigler, of the forthcoming book: Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Rogachevsky tells the riveting story of the composition of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Its first draft, he explains, was a collaboration between an American rabbi and a young Israeli lawyer, and produced a text that fundamentally drew upon America’s Declaration of Independence, which blended natural rights and Jewish justifications for the Jewish state. Rogachevsky narrates the drama of the weeks and days leading up to the eve of independence on May 14, 1948, as the Declaration weaved its way through the bureaucracy of the state-to-be before landing on the desk of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion had to make monumental decisions about the character of the state and its relationship to the outside world. His choices, Rogachevsky argues, fundamentally shaped modern Israel—and offer lessons about democracy, rights, sovereignty, religion, and statecraft that resonate to this day.

Eleven months into the war, where do things stand in Ukraine? What does the West need to do to help Ukraine win? What lessons can we draw from the war about the ambitions of authoritarians, the resolve of liberal democracies today, and the most pressing geopolitical challenges we face? To discuss these questions, Bill Kristol is joined by Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, who has led important efforts in education and civil society in Ukraine over the last decade. According to Fukuyama, we are in the midst of a difficult moment in the war. Nonetheless, he argues, the fundamental dynamics remain unchanged: Ukraine can win if it receives adequate military and financial support from the West. Fukuyama argues that Ukraine’s impressive performance and Russia’s weakness should force us to confront and reassess the fashionable narrative of pessimism about liberal democracies. The war, as well as other recent developments, has revealed the reserves of strength and resilience in liberal democracies, while the weaknesses of strong states such as Russia and China have become more apparent. This assessment is not one of complacency. Rather, Fukuyama points to the high stakes of the war—and the importance of strengthening our resolve to defend free countries against authoritarian threats.

Where do things stand two years into Biden's presidency? Should he seek reelection? What other prospective Democratic candidates might emerge in the months ahead? What are the odds Trump will be the Republican nominee, and what might a Republican primary field look like? To consider these questions, we are joined by James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist. While praising Biden’s accomplishments, and in particular his handling of the war in Ukraine, Carville argues it could be best for the country for Biden to pass the torch to the next generation and not seek reelection. On the Republican side, Carville and Kristol assess Donald Trump’s prospects, and the opportunities for challengers like Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp. Carville contends that Trump’s downward trajectory is striking—gone pecan, as they say in Louisiana. But he acknowledges that the former president still could win the nomination as a result of Republicans’ winner-take-all primary contests and the strong attachment to Trump by a significant faction within the Republican Party. Carville also reflects more broadly on the state of our politics, including the persistence of MAGA policies and attitudes even beyond Trump, and the question of whether the threat to the Democratic Party posed by identity Left politics has peaked.