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The New Hampshire Primary

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Dr. Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss the results of the recent New Hampshire primary.

Access Hillsdale Dialogues Archive


HH: The world is upside down. We’ve gone back to the 60s. Bernie Sanders is going to be the next president. And I have called upon my friend, Dr. Larry Arnn, to dedicate the Hillsdale Dialogue this week to move it forward and bring us some insight into what happened yesterday, because the United States voted in the New Hampshire primary by an overwhelming margin to anoint as nominees of the Republican party a billionaire casino owner/developer, and of the Democratic Party, a Woodstock generation, Brooklyn born Jewish-American of socialist credentials avowedly. Dr. Arnn, we are at an interesting place.

LA: If you like contrast, you’re happy as a pig in the mud today.

HH: We have got, and by the way, I am going to be replaying this show on Friday in the regular Hillsdale Dialogue, and so if you’re listening to it on Friday and you heard it on Wednesday, you say to yourself, oh, good, I get to hear that again. But if you’re listening to it on a Friday, I did it immediately after, because I drafted Dr. Arnn to help provide context to what happened. The Hillsdale Dialogue, of course, www.hillsdale.edu, everything Hillsdale is available there. All of our previous dialogues are available at www.hughforhillsdale.com. But we have a debate on Saturday. So whether you’re listening on Wednesday or Friday, we have a debate on Saturday between at least five and maybe six Republicans, as the field winnowed with the dropping out Wednesday of Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina. So Dr. Arnn, I want to cover both races and what they say with you in the first couple of segments, and then talk a little bit about where the country ought to be thinking about later in the program. What do you think the Republican debate on Saturday night is going to be like?

LA: Well, first of all, they’ve put on their big boy pants now, and they’re creaming each other.

HH: Yeah.

LA: You know, they’re really…

HH: Oh, wow.

LA: I mean, they’re really working each other over. So there’s a fight. And it’s, you know, so the news concerned, mostly in the Republican primary, Trump, Rubio and Kasich. You might say that Jeb Bush was helped a bit, the others stayed the same, but Trump did very well. He doubled the vote of anybody else, and a bit more. Kasich came second, and Rubio fell. And he fell because of a debate performance.

HH: He fell hard.

LA: Hard, yeah, very. And you know, there’s, so first of all, we’re in the middle of a great national crisis, right? What kind of government are we going to have? Are we going to be a government of limited government? Are we going to keep the principles of the country and the Constitution? And that’s at stake, and this is only the third time, I think, in American history where you could say that. So the situation is very serious, and there’s a big fight going on. And it would be wrong to expect coherence. It’s not like that.

HH: How interesting.

LA: Yeah.

HH: You’re not upset by the conflict and the incoherence?

LA: No, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about the political career of Abraham Lincoln. And you know, how did he get to be president? He, first of all, he was nobody, and he looked bad, and he had bad suits. And he was up against Mr. Prestige, Stephen Douglas. And so he started out by going to Douglas’ own appearances and putting up signs, and then waiting until Douglas had finished, and get up on the same stage and give a speech, challenging Douglas to debate him. And there had never been anything like the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and there never have been since then anything like them anywhere, because…

HH: Well, we might, we might get to them this cycle.

LA: Yeah, because what’s, the one thing that’s going on, every crazy thing is going on, and probably much of it is bad. But this is good. People are watching these candidates directly. And their performances, which you can now watch on YouTube or wherever you want, their performances, the candidate is the campaign. And Rubio, who’s been great, fell into a trap set by Chris Christie, who was obviously very angry with him. And he cost him his momentum, whether he can get it back or not.

HH: In case anyone Rip Van Winkled yesterday, the final results are, on Tuesday, Trump – 100,400 votes, John Kasich – 44,000 votes, Ted Cruz – 33,000 votes, Jeb Bush – 31,000 votes, Marco Rubio – 30,000 votes, Chris Christie – 21,000 votes, Carly Fiorina – 11,000 votes, Ben Carson – 6,509 votes. Now a few things about that, some very angry Rubio supporters emailed me that Chris Christie was a suicide bomber, or had committed a murder-suicide. There is great anger against him. But he was the subject of many, many hard-hitting ads paid for by Rubio superPAC, and this is politics. And the Lincoln-Douglas debates had many hard-hitting attacks in them as well. That’s good for America that our violence is rhetorical.

LA: That’s right, and that’s right. And it’s, people want their candidates to be genuine, and so that was a very clever attack. You know, I personally think Rubio is genuine. But he didn’t react very well to that. He was being taunted for saying the same thing, and he kept saying it again. And he might have varied the discourse there, right? And you never know. He was rolling. He was, there’s a really good New York Times story about the state of the campaign, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it tells a good story, and you know, they were really doing well, and money was coming in, and endorsements were coming in, and they were getting ready for this debate. And they thought, you know, we’re going to do great in New Hampshire, and maybe second, and maybe first. And then there, what do campaign consultants often tell you except be cautious?

HH: Right, well, that’s what they always tell you – the NFL prevent defense.

LA: That’s right. And see, Trump, by the way, you know, he begins most of his speeches by reciting all the terrible things that have been said about him. So you know, and then turn them into jokes and turn them into advantages. And he’s not scripted, and that seems genuine to people. And so if you start seeming scripted, and you know, politics are very scripted at this level in America. And so that attack revealed a weakness. And he’s rhetorically very adept. If he gets a chance, if the race breaks in a way that he gets a chance, he can probably fix that. But it really needs fixing.

HH: Now John Kasich, the governor of the great state of Ohio, and a friend of mine, and Ted Cruz, the senator of Texas and a friend of mine and yours, both did very well, very, very well. John Kasich is now in the position of being the happy warrior. And there’ll probably be two fights on Saturday night’s debate stage, one between Trump and Cruz, and one between Rubio and Jeb Bush. And John Kasich, though he will be hit by the ads, is simply going to continue to say look, let’s all come together. And he’s been around for a long time. He is not a liberal. He is a conservative, Larry Arnn. Does he play well in Michigan, which will be, your home town on March 8th, your home state is going to be a very important factor in this race for the presidency.

LA: I think so, and I think he might. He’s, you know, the race has a dynamic of its own, now. It’s a real live argument. It’s not who’s got the money, and now we’re going to roll out, and there’s this inevitability to it. There are several very talented people in this race, including John Kasich. And Kasich has been, you know, you have to give him something for this. He has been steady and persistent right along. And it’s just possible that people could conclude he’s the adult in the room. It’s just possible that they could conclude that about Jeb Bush, too. And those are the two guys who are left who you know, are more alike with each other, which means of course that sooner or later, they have to fall to fighting if they both survive long enough.

HH: And somehow, Jeb Bush persuaded people that winning 11% in New Hampshire with the name Bush was a victory.

LA: Yeah.

HH: And he did. He did that. That’s a good political art there, a good exercise of art.

LA: During, after the debate, where Christie attacked Rubio, one of the things that popped in my mind, and I’m at a Hillsdale College board meeting and conference right now, where there’s a lot of people who think about this stuff and even know the people in it. And a lot of people tell me what they thought. I thought Christie’s going to get out the day after New Hampshire, and a day or two after that, he’s going to endorse Jeb Bush. And so it wasn’t a suicide run. It was a desperate attack on behalf of someone else. And I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if Christie’s support went to Bush, his support in New Hampshire went to Bush, that would have made Bush very strong. Whether Christie has any support in South Carolina, which is the big thing next, and the Nevada caucuses, we don’t really know. But you know, things could shift around a lot. And I thought there was a chance that Bush might be eliminated in New Hampshire, and he’s not been.

HH: He’s not, no.

LA: He still goes on.

HH: And I like the fact, and we’ll come back and we’ll talk more about the Republicans in the next segment. The second half of the Hillsdale Dialogue for Friday’s program will be about the Democrats. But don’t go anywhere. Ted Cruz and the Supreme Court takes center stage next, as they did in the 1860 election. Don’t go anywhere.

— – – — –

HH: One thing that happened yesterday was that Ted Cruz, who had not been talked about, I complained bitterly to Don Lemon the night before that I could not understand why the winner of Iowa was being ignored by the national news media almost to a degree that was weird that the winner of Iowa was ignored. And he came in third, and he’s very potent, and he’s very well-organized, and he has a data collection delivery system without parallel. And then yesterday, the Supreme Court dealt itself back into the conversation by issuing an injunction, a stay against the Barack Obama EPA from trying to impose climate change rules on us all. And Attorney General Mark Brnovich of Arizona joined me on Wednesday to talk about that. He’s a party to this suit. Does Ted Cruz, as this field thins, meaning more time per participant on the stage, necessarily find himself getting an advantage because it’s playing to his skill set?

LA: Well, that’s right. It, this is, he’s, Ted Cruz is smart. He’s very unscripted. And remember, I’ve said in this conversation that I don’t think Rubio is scripted or certainly, he’s certainly a naturally-gifted speaker. And I believe he’s saying what he thinks. Ted Cruz is very obviously that, too. And he’s also really knowledgeable. And so it’s possible that he, you know, things are going to, it’s actually possible that first of all, it’s possible that Trump is going to roll. And the only one you can say there’s signs of that is Trump.

HH: Yeah, and by the way, Larry and I are the Switzerland of the Republican Party. We have endorsed nobody. And we will not endorse anybody. So go ahead.

LA: Yeah, it’s been so good for me to know Hugh, because he issues commands like that in my name to the nation, and now I can refuse all comers. It’s very handy. But it’s, see, I’ve been converted into a journalist without the salary.

HH: A fine move. I like that. I like that a lot.

LA: It’s very good. But yeah, Trump’s challenge is can he get above 40-45%, because of course, he’s got to broaden his appeal very greatly to, you know, to become elected president of the United States, or to sweep to the nomination without a divided, brokered convention.

HH: And we had one of those with four candidates in 1860, when the one with the fewest delegates when it opened became the nominee.

LA: That’s right. Yeah, won on the second and a half ballot, he did.

HH: And I point out to people, either Jeb or Rubio will drop out after Florida, if not both of them. So the most we’re going to have going to this open convention is four – Trump, either Jeb or Rubio, Cruz and John Kasich.

LA: Right.

HH: And that sets up a fascinating, it’s almost, I can’t compare them. Nothing compares accurately. But a lot of people are going to be studying that 1860 convention very closely, Larry Arnn.

LA: That’s right, and see, Lincoln inspired, you know, my reading of him, but of course, I’m biased. I love Abraham Lincoln and know a lot about him. Is that bias? Not really. But Lincoln inspired love and confidence by his eloquence. And I just want to make the point that there’s a greater measure of that in this campaign from more than one source than I have seen in any campaign since Ronald Reagan was the nominee. And there was, in that race, there was nobody approximately like Reagan able to, you know, move people and win deep loyalty from them. And in ’76, Reagan did that, too, and almost took out the incumbent president in a primary, Gerald Ford. So these, this factor is, in its essence, hard to estimate, because it depends upon the powers of certain individuals who are obviously very talented, and those powers are unfolding in the context of a fight with each other right now.

HH: The wellspring of deep loyalty is interesting, Dr. Arnn, because thousands, maybe, if not thousands, a thousand Buckeyes showed up in New Hampshire. Marco Rubio’s people are passionate about him. The Trump people are extraordinarily passionate. The Ted Cruz people are extraordinarily passionate. And Team Bush, Barbara Bush came with a walker to New Hampshire and was greeted with, you know, great hallelujahs and great to see. She’s an icon. And so they are all, this isn’t driven by money, although money’s sloshing around. Money might be radioactive, actually, in this race.

LA: Yeah, yeah, if you’re, you know, if you’re using mom early.

HH: If you’re using, release the kraken is what I said on CNN.

LA: It means you mean it.

LA: Yeah, and it is just, you know, because there’s all this planning, right, you know, and consultants and these guys who make a lot of money, and they’re not around Trump. And they are around Cruz, but you know, I happen to know him pretty well, and I’ve even watched him one time with them around him. And nobody sits and tells Cruz all day what he’s going to say.

HH: No.

LA: And I don’t know about Rubio. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter about that, because they walk about there, and they say things that are unexpected to one another, and probably sometimes to themselves, and they have to make an argument.

HH: Yeah.

LA: So that’s real politics, and it’s relatively, it’s not like Lincoln-Douglas, but it is relatively unfiltered. The people are getting a chance to watch and make up their own minds, and they are doing that.

HH: I’ve spent hours on the radio with Kasich, Rubio and Cruz – hours. And I’ve spent enough time with Jeb Bush and with Donald Trump to get a feel for them, though it isn’t the hours and hours I’ve spent with the other three. They’re all gifted, knowledgeable, experienced men. They know their way around an argument. So this is, I think, Reince Priebus should be getting applause. He’s getting bricks from some people who don’t like this order. But I think he ought to be getting applause, and I have to always acknowledge my son works for the RNC, but I would say the same thing, because I love debates. And I think it’s working good.

LA: Oh, I talked to Mr. Priebus one time in my life, and I liked him. And I liked his attitude about it, and about what he was trying to achieve, which was a series of debates that give everybody a fair shot, and then achieve some coherence. But, and so that’s what I hope will happen in the next month. But you know, just because coherent arguments, you know, where they come down to some points and some alternatives, and then the people get to choose. That’s what the political system is, how it works. But I also think this, and this is just me talking, not him. I think that in regard to the Democratic Party, the Republican Party is much weaker. And there’s a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is they don’t have these superdelegates, right, who are elected…

HH: Correct.

LA: …and former public officials who make up a big bloc of people who’ve won elections, and who can, and get to be part of, delegates to the convention without being elected. So they’re much, they have brokers, right? And the Republican Party doesn’t have any.

HH: Oh, all we have are arguments. Dr. Larry Arnn, the Hillsdale Dialogue, all of them available at www.hughforhillsdale.com. Stay tuned.

— – – —

HH: And Dr. Arnn, I just played Crosby, Stills and Nash’s Woodstock, because the Bernie Sanders moment is extraordinary. We’re focused on the Republicans, because you and I are conservatives, and we lean that way. But Hillary Clinton, I saw one exit poll which said if your number one issue is the honesty, integrity and trustworthiness of the candidate, who did you vote for, and Bernie Sanders won that, 94-6. And at the same time, he is running on a dishonest economic platform, because it has been proven again and again and again not to work. So how do you square those things?

LA: Well, there’s, CNN commissioned, I think CNN commissioned it, but it was reported on CNN, an economic study by a professor at the University of Massachusetts who showed that the GDP will go up 25%, and the median income will go up 25% within two or three years after Bernie Sanders is elected.

LA: And the professor, as you read down the article, you know, he got toward the middle of it, the professor did allow that he was himself an avowed socialist. And then the article admitted a little later than that, that there were some economists who didn’t agree with that.

LA: So you know, if we could make ourselves rich by pooling all of our resources and giving them to the government then to dole out equally, well, Churchill had a word for that kind of plan – too easy to be good. And so I don’t think it’ll work, but you know, one thing to notice in New Hampshire is that he just whipped her every way possible.

HH: Yeah.

LA: I think she was ahead of him in the 65-plus demographic, which is…

HH: Of women, only women, 65-plus women.

LA: Oh, only the women?

HH: Yeah.

LA: And goodness gracious, you know, I mean, it just, that means middle-aged people, and that means rich people and poor people and highly-educated people and non-highly educated people, it just, every which way did he beat her, and he beat her by a lot. And of course, he got a lot more than 50% in the race.

HH: I think they’re teetering on the brink of collapse. And I believe it goes down to a number of things, one of which is you cannot stay in the public eye. This has nothing to do with the Clinton ethical problems. But you cannot stay in the public eye for 25 years and remain viable in American modern culture. Do you agree there’s something to that?

LA: Yeah, well, nobody does that. In the American political system, you know, it does produce, always it has produced, experienced presidencies, right, experienced people getting, being elected president. But then you do it, in all cases, except Franklin Roosevelt, for a maximum of eight years, and about half of them only four years, and then you’re finished, right?

HH: Right.

LA: And so the careers are not like the careers of Winston Churchill, where he was in high elected and many cabinet positions for 55 years. That doesn’t, that’s not how it works over here.

HH: And he did it by arguing, though. He did it by being a participant in the public debate, not by being a holder of office. I mean, he did both of those, but in the periods when he was not holding public office, he stayed in the lists. Hillary Clinton never argues anything. This is her problem. She assumes that she is entitled to everything.

LA: Well, Churchill was a different kind of thing than that, in part because he was one of the most widely-read people in Britain throughout his career. And it was all stuff that he wrote, some newspaper articles with some help, but almost all of it was the product of his brain and insightful way of expressing himself.

HH: You know, I don’t think we have any modern American political figure except Ronald Reagan who wrote his own commentaries for the GE commentary who has ever attempted to mount a sustained argument with the American people over the airwaves over a long period of time. Am I wrong, Larry?

LA: Yeah, well, that’s right. So Reagan, you know, I’ve been having memories of Reagan a lot lately, because this race reminds me of it in some ways. And I remember Reagan’s first press conference the day after the election. And he walked up there, and one of my favorite things to say is that when you hire somebody, you find out more in the first week they’re on the job than you could find out by talking to them for three months beforehand.

LA: And it’s just, you know, now you see them in the job, right? And Reagan walked out to give that press conference, and at ten minutes in, I remember saying out loud, this guy is going to really be good at this.

HH: Yeah, he was. I remember it well. And George Will’s first interview where he wore a brown suit, and he commented on the fact that a man who has the confidence to wear a brown suit is going to be a great president. Don’t go anywhere. Dr. Larry Arnn returns.

— – – — –

HH: And we revert now back to the Republican field, and how we debate of five over two and a half hours ought to play out. And so Dr. Arnn, like you, like me, I am Switzerland. I will participate in the February 25th debate and the March 10th debate as an asker of questions, and so I may very well have these five individuals or six individuals, if Dr. Carson indeed makes it onto the stage, and I’m unclear on the rules set. How would you, what would you think the best role of the moderator is at this point, and of the panelists? It has been to provoke, thus far, and it’s not, and to keep the time relatively fair. That’s over now. What ought they to do? The Lincoln-Douglas debates had no panelist or moderators.

LA: Well, so I actually have of late designed what I regard as the ideal debate. It just isn’t possible under the rules for us to host it. But we have invited some of the candidates to campus, and probably some of them will come. But what I would do is I would set up, and I would love to see it be three or four. And I would set up three hours, and I would give every one of them 15 minutes at the beginning and the end to say whatever they pleased. And then the questions would be, if you came to Hillsdale College, the questions would be focused on the question of the recovery of Constitutional and limited government. And that would mean questions about the entitlement state and the regulatory state, and the huge, big things that are different in American politics that I personally regard as dangerous. And I would ask them a series of questions about that, but the purpose would be to let them reveal themselves about that, including in argument with one another. And so I would give them a lot of latitude. And I would try to keep roughly equal time, but I would also, you know, it’s like these conversations, right? We’ve been having them for years now, 25 years, counting all the time we’ve known each other, but four years on these things, or something like that.

HH: Yeah.

LA: And they go where they go, right? And that’s because you make a point, and I make a point, and there you go. So…

HH: Yeah, well, I tell people it’s because you are wise and I am curious, and that’s a good combination.

HH: And now tell me about the specifics about Hillsdale, because if I were a Republican consultant, and I’m not now nor have I ever been, and I do not advise any of the campaigns, I keep saying that, because people who hear what they want to hear accuse me of being for one candidate or another, and neither Dr. Arnn nor I are. I would, however, go to Hillsdale College because of the reach of the institution. It would be covered immensely. Do they know that? It would be important for me for a Republican nominee to know that fact about conservatism.

LA: Yeah, they, well, you know, they’re responsive. And you know, the other thing is these people are, you know, they’re in the middle of a war. And you know, it’s getting now just to the point for the first time when they might be able to think about the week before the Michigan primary. But still, that seems distant, you know? What are we going to do tomorrow? So I don’t know if it’ll work out or not.

LA: I hope so, and it can’t work out so that they get to do that thing that I think. And see, what is my purpose, right? I’m a partisan for the Constitution of the United States. I’m a partisan of the freedom and justice for the American people. I’m a partisan of their equal rights. I want candidates to talk about that, because that’s what’s at issue.

HH: Yeah.

LA: And I even fancy that there is more talk about that kind of thing among these candidates than is typical in a primary.

HH: Do you know that yesterday, excuse me, on Tuesday, I had on Mike Lee, fine Senator from Utah, and Jeb Hensarling, a fine Congressman, and they have begun something called the Article I Project to restore the powers to the Congress that are, that have been taken by the presidency. And it was pointed out to me on election night that if Ted Cruz were the president, and I’m not endorsing him, that he would actually be in conflict with the Congress from the get-go, because they don’t like him much inside the Beltway. I don’t think that’s true about Republicans, generally. I don’t like the idea that the Republican establishment doesn’t like Ted Cruz. I think the D.C. Republican establishment doesn’t much like Ted Cruz. But he gets along fine with every Republican I know outside the Beltway, Larry Arnn. Do you agree with that?

LA: Yeah, and you know, Ted Cruz gets along fine with Mike Lee, to name somebody.

HH: Yeah.

LA: And, but he, first of all, I don’t, you know, the test that any of these guys will face, and see, I’ll say something. You know, Donald Trump published an article in the Reno, Nevada newspaper ten days ago or something like that, that is actually brilliant about why we don’t have laws. We’re not a land of laws anymore, and what it would take to recover it. And what it is, you know, friends of mine and I have been publishing this for 30 years now, is that the Congress has got to start doing its job again. And that means things are not laws unless the Congress passes them. And that itself would place a limit on the size of government, because Congress only has so many, so much time to pass laws. So they’ve delegated that to hundreds of agencies that pass thousands of laws every year. And that need to stop. And it could stop. And Trump called for that, and Cruz has called for that, and I bet you Rubio and Kasich and the others have called for that. But that’s what you need. And so…

HH: There’s a…

LA: The test for Cruz, and I would guess that he would pass this test, is that he would have to start helping do his part, which means a surrender from the executive, to let the Congress pass the laws. And so any of them, in my opinion, cannot be ultimately successful unless they do that.

HH: Yeah.

LA: And so would he do that? Yeah, I know he stands for that, and I think he probably would. But you know, I hope so. I hope all, any of them who wins would do.

HH: Now let me ask you a very particular question. Donald Trump, who is attacked often on a lot of different reasons, has produced an extraordinary set of children, one of whom, Ivanka, was my guest on Tuesday. And she’s so accomplished and so remarkable. We have a minute to the break. What do you make of that? And how does that figure into the assessment of a candidate?

LA: That’s the plus, right? The people I know, you know, who are for Trump, they point to things like that, and say that the people who have worked for Trump also have a high opinion of him. But his kids are good, you know?

HH: Yeah.

LA: And he did give that really great answer. I’m not pumping for Trump, but he gave that great answer, you know, what about, are you going to have a blind trust, right?

HH: Yeah.

LA: And his answer was I’m proud of my company, I love my company, I’ve astonished the world by revealing what it is. But it matters nothing compared to this. The kids can run it.

HH: He gave that answer to me. It was great.

LA: Yeah.

HH: I’ll be right back with Dr. Larry Arnn to conclude this week’s Hillsdale Dialogue.

— – — – –

HH: Dr. Arnn, I am curious, since you are with the Hillsdale board, and they are all great Americans and great citizens, is there worry or is there enjoyment or both at this process that is unfolding?

LA: Both, yeah. It, you know, here’s what I think. I think that we’re not going to get out of this mess, it’s not going to be tidy, and it’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to take a long time, and there’s going to be a lot of groping and a lot of friction along the way. And so it just looks to me like the groping and the friction is more serious this time. And we don’t know, yet, see, we don’t, like this field just looks a lot better to me than they have in recent years. But we don’t, we won’t know until somebody tries to do the job. I mean, we didn’t know that Abraham Lincoln would be what he was as president. But then, you know, like here’s a thing unpredictable. Who would know that Lincoln would bring to a stop on a dime a hundred years of independent cabinet power, right? He walked in there, and by the second day, everybody was working for him.

HH: Yeah.

LA: As it had been right in the origins of the executive branch. And you know, he put very powerful people, some of them whom almost being for president, in the cabinet. And then the next thing, like one time, there was this great thing where they were, some of his cabinet members were conspiring with Congress, and Congress was going to pass a bill that basically said he couldn’t fire the cabinet officers without their approval. So that would make them independent, right?

HH: Right.

LA: And so he called, he got a meeting together with the Congressional leaders, and then he called the cabinet to a cabinet meeting at the same time and didn’t tell each other. And he’s got them all in the room. And he says to the cabinet, these men here from the Congress are saying that there’s a lot of strife between us, and we can’t get along. Is that true?

HH: Is that true.

LA: And of course, they all said no, of course not, right?

HH: Oh, no, none.

LA: So nobody would know that Abraham Lincoln could do that. He just was able.

HH: Well, Dr. Larry Arnn, I’m glad you’re an optimist. People need some optimism. They’re a little bit, it’s very stressful, because the world is a very dangerous place. It’s very stressful to go through this thing…

LA: Yeah.

HH: …without certainty.

LA: Yeah, and a sober point to make, a solemn point to make is we stand at a moment of deep division and danger to our republic. Every one of us needs to be the best citizen he can for years. You need to learn, you need to talk, you need to think, you need to be involved.

HH: No better way to end a Hillsdale Dialogue than that. Dr. Larry Arnn, thank you.

End of interview.

 

C.S