The Mueller Report Part 2

HUGH HEWITT: Morning glory, America. Bonjour, hi, Canada. Greetings to the rest of the world watching on Univision, which you can do at HughHewitt.com. It is the last radio hour of the week. That means it is time for the Hillsdale Dialogue. Once a week, I sit down with either Dr. Larry Arnn or Dr. Matthew Spalding, who is here today, the Director of Hillsdale College's Kirby Center in Washington DC, which is a lighthouse of reason in the darkness of the capital.  

Dr. Spalding joins me from the Kirby Center this morning. Matt, good morning to you. Everything Hillsdale is collected at Hillsdale.edu. But we still need you to weigh in on a lot of stuff today, including the Mueller report, the Barr letter, obstruction without an underlying crime, the read rule, judicial nominees, Brexit, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We got a lot of ground to cover.  

MATTHEW SPALDING: Wow. Good morning to you.  

HEWITT: Yeah, welcome aboard. I just wanted to let you know, it is the pentathlon today. Let's start with the Mueller report. What do you make of it?  

SPALDING: I think some interesting things are going on there, and we're not yet out of the woods here. I think we're missing part of the story, which is that there are two levels of debates going on here. I think there's a legal debate about what obstruction means and the whole question about collusion and the content of the report, which you see in the back and forth, especially with Barr's memo and some of his previous work.  

And then underneath that, there's a political debate going on with Congress, and I think they're still pushing that hard. And I think the gap in between them is what we're really debating. Let me explain what I mean by that. I think the key here is going back and remembering what Bill Barr, before he was attorney general, wrote in a memo on June 8 of 2018, before he's nominated, before he becomes attorney general, where he questions-- he sends a memo to the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, questioning Mueller's theory of obstruction that he was pursuing in this investigation, saying that it was novel and legally insupportable and flawed and violates the definition of obstruction. And he was going to try to define this very broad.  

He becomes attorney general, Mueller sends the report forward, Barr responds in that short memo saying that, while he found no collusion-- which I think is correct, I don't think Barr is hiding anything here-- but then Mueller did not take a position on obstruction, allowing, in my opinion, actually, pushing Barr to conclude what was clear from his earlier memo that there was no obstruction. That answers the legal question.  

The question is whether the political question has been answered. And I think the response there is, well, actually, the political question has not been answered, and Congress still wants to keep that political question open because Congress, a political body, can still conclude the political question that he did obstruct, in their opinion, which is to say impeachment is still on the table.  

HEWITT: So, I want to come back and stay on the legal question for a moment. I want to remind everyone that Attorney General Barr is a lawyer's lawyer. Before he was this attorney general-- he was attorney general before. And before he was attorney general, he was the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. That is the brain, the lawyer's lawyer in the Department of Justice, the AAG for OLC.  

His deputy at the time is now former federal Judge Michael Luttig, who, along with Chief Justice John Roberts, were considered the smartest guys in the government. Barr is in that class. Those three are the smartest guys in the government. And so when he says that there is no way to advance the theory that Mueller is advancing without imperiling, not merely Trump, but everyone in government-- I've read the Barr memo from June of last year, and he's saying every member of Congress will be imperiled by this, everybody in the world will be imperiled by this. This is a terrible outcome--  

SPALDING: It's a disastrous idea. It opens up a can of worms that would destroy the rule of law. He's very clear, it's a powerful memo.  

HEWITT: He's right. Now, I think what's going on here-- and this is not original to me, it is original to a very wise, old lawyer in Washington DC-- is that Mueller refused to conclude as a sort of payback because Trump wouldn't talk to him. So that when we get the report, we're going to see Mueller say, I can't conclude on obstruction because the president wouldn't talk to me. Which will end the political debate. If that is, in fact, what he says, I can't conclude because the president wouldn't talk to me, do you believe that will bring the curtain down on all but the extremists on the political debate, Dr. Matt Spalding?  

SPALDING: I think it leaves the political question open, and it potentially is going to have the effect of really dividing the critics, especially on the left. Consider what's happened. They've put so much emphasis into this report. I think Mueller has-- we don't know the particulars of the content; we just know the memo. He has delivered his report. He did not make a conclusion. Why he did not make the conclusion and what he presents there can go different directions.  

But I think inherently, it will have to leave open the possibility that it can be interpreted politically, not legally. I think Barr has shut that door. But politically, it could still be understood to leave plenty of room open, which means you're going to have these groupings now. And you see it-- you see it. Even Barr's memo has forced, I think, a lot of the progressive left to break apart and split on these interpretations.  

They were previously united on collusion, and now they're going in different directions, figuring out what to do and how to position themselves. Because there's still a large group on the left, especially the progressive left in Congress, that would like to see this as grounds for, if not actual, impeachment hearings, but at the very least, making this a central political move going into a campaign.  

And now, I think we're seeing a political battle. But it does turn on this legal question that Barr has rightly put front and center. Mueller didn't conclude in his report, and that leaves room, I think, for perhaps someone on Mueller's staff. There is a report in today's Post, in last night's New York Times, staff being upset that their view was not put forward. My guess is that some of them intended this to specifically leave that question open so that Congress is-- essentially, shifts the football to Congress to keep that political argument alive.  

HEWITT: I'm talking with Dr. Matt Spalding, head of the Kirby Center, which you can follow on Twitter at Kirby Center from Hillsdale College, all things Hillsdale at Hillsdale.edu. Now, we will find out, Dr. Spalding, because that part of the Mueller report dealing with the obstruction non-charge is not going to be classified. In fact, in the Barr letter, there is a reference to public acts by the president, meaning that we're going to see that part. The part we're not going to see is the intelligence and the classified material about how we found out about what the GRU did when they attacked our election.  

Key finding-- not one American-- not the president, not any member of his campaign team, that any member of his family, not one American conspired with the Russians to impact and attack our election. That's a key finding. That's all going to be partially redacted and classified because of the means that we have ascertained that conclusion. But what will not be classified is, if they believe firing Comey could have been obstruction, and if they believe that the president's tweets could have been construed as obstruction, if they believe any of that, but that we can't decide because the president didn't talk to us, that will all be unclassified, and I think it risks embarrassing the Mueller team.  

And let me tell you one other thing, Matt. It is against the code of prosecutorial ethics to leak. So, I do not believe prosecutors are leaking this. It says staff. I would look for a bureau agent or somebody else to be leaking this, not Andrew Weissmann, not one of the lawyers. They would have to be shedding their ethics in a way that could get them disbarred if anyone leaked who was leaking.  

SPALDING: If you look at these reports in today's paper, The New York Times, we're talking about third or fourth level. It's someone who knew something, who knew a staff on Mueller's team. It's a long train here. I think that you're absolutely right about what Mueller was doing and what he was restrained to do, given what Barr reminded him of in terms of what obstruction meant. I think he couldn't conclude, and he gave that to Barr to rightly make that call.  

Having said that, I think he, because of the nature of how he was pursuing this, has left the door open, which you just know is going to be pushed by some, especially in the political world, to try to keep that argument alive. I think they've invested so much into this report, and so much into its conclusions, it's hard for them to accept that, drop it, and move on.  

HEWITT: It's the five stages of grieving. It's the first-- the five stages of grief, according to Kübler-Ross, are anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The left can't get over this. It's two weeks. They can't get over this. You've got 30 seconds, Matt Spalding. We'll come back on the other side of the break. Will they ever get over this?  

SPALDING: I don't think they can. I think they've got to figure out a way to push this and keep it alive enough to go into the election and to put everything on the possibility of bringing this president down. And it's become, as previous impeachments have been before, a completely political question, and we're now outside the realm of the legal.  

HEWITT: And there is no way he would ever be removed from office. I don't even think he gets an impeachment vote. So, I think it is politically self-destructive of the Democrats to pursue this. We'll continue to talk about that with Hillsdale College's Dr. Matt Spalding, head of the Kirby Center, right after this. It is the Hillsdale Dialogue. All things Hillsdale at Hillsdale.edu. Stay tuned.  

Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt in the ReliefFactor.com Studio. It is the Hillsdale Dialogue. Once a week, in the last radio hour of the week, I talk with either Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, or one of his colleagues, like Dr. Matt Spalding, who is the director of the Kirby Center, which is the Hillsdale lantern of reason in the shadow of the Capitol, about the big issues that go back. We've been doing this since 2013. If you want to binge, listen, and redeem your day in a car, go to HughForHillsdale.com and go all the way back to Homer up to the present day. Today, we're talking about the present day, and I want to talk to you about the Reid rule, which was deployed by Mitch McConnell this week to break the delaying tactics of the Democrats by simple majority.  

They changed the rules of the Senate to limit to two hours the debate on everyone not nominated for a cabinet position, a Supreme Court seat, or a circuit judgeship. Everyone else gets two hours of debate post-cloture. The Democrats have been running the clock out-- 30 hours of debate on every nominee. They've just basically sludged up the system. I'm glad McConnell did this. It's the third exercise of the Reid rule. The first time by Reid to pack the DC Circuit, the second time by McConnell to end the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, and now this one. What do you think, Matt Spalding?  

SPALDING: I think it was definitely the right thing to do under the circumstances, which is to say, the prudent thing to do. But I think this just warms my constitutional heart because I think, in this case, it is an example of a restoration of the proper processes of the Senate. Let's back up for one second here and think about what larger problem is here. The Senate no longer deliberates. The purpose of the Senate is to deliberate, it's supposed to be the part of Congress, the house of Congress that thinks long term and debates and argues, and then does things. Its job is still to pass laws. Its job is still to approve nominations and give advice and consent to the president.  

The problem is that a lot of these rules-- and these are rules, these are not laws and they're not in the Constitution, these are rules of the Senate. The rules are becoming ipso facto pocket vetoes to gum up the whole system, so the Senate doesn't do its job. And that's a real problem that, in my opinion, really constitutes a constitutional dilemma that prevents them from doing their duty.  

HEWITT: And, Matt, I think--  

SPALDING: Yeah, go ahead.  

HEWITT: I want to point out, the United States Constitution is written down and it commits certain things to the Senate to do. And some things it says the Senate may only do by super majorities. For example, they may only ratify a treaty by a 2/3 vote, or they may only ratify an amendment to the Constitution by a 2/3 vote. One of the powers explicitly committed to the Senate is to advise and consent to nominees. They're supposed to do that, and they're to do it as a Senate without a supermajority.  

That means, to me, it has always been extra constitutional to have the filibuster. Now, they can have a filibuster on the legislative side without offending the Constitution. But they are told to advise and consent. It is supposed to be a majoritarian principle. That's why you can block Merrick Garland or anyone else, because the Republicans had the majority. But they are supposed to vote or decide on the nominees, yay or nay, and the majority is supposed to rule on nominees.  

SPALDING: No, that's absolutely right. And making that distinction between legislative filibuster and, I would say, judicial nominations filibusters is very important here. Let's remember a little bit of history. Prior to-- this is called Rule 22; it comes in 1949. And between then and 2000, there are something over 2,000 judges that are confirmed by the US Senate, and there are only 12 cloture votes and I think only a couple of failures. This is only a recent phenomenon after the 2000 election, when they started under the Bush administration calling regular cloture votes to block nominations.  

HEWITT: Patrick Leahy did this. Patrick Leahy and Harry Reid began this descent into paralysis.  

SPALDING: And so the first move here was to actually take the two things you recognize as divided, meaning a legislative filibuster and a filibuster for nominations, and they united them in a way that I think was improper procedurally, but also raises a larger constitutional problem of preventing them from practicing their advise and consent rules. And this is why it's a restoration to go back to that.  

HEWITT: It is a restoration, it is long overdue, it is a good thing. And Majority Leader McConnell remains the best-- the best legislative leader the Republicans have had in my lifetime. Don't go anywhere. I'm coming right back with Matt Spalding. Except to Hillsdale.edu. Sign up for Imprimis and stay tuned to the Hugh Hewitt Show.  

Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt in the ReliefFactor.com Studio. It is the Hillsdale Dialogue, the last radio hour of the week when I go big with one of the big brains from Hillsdale College, the lantern of reason in the north. And Hillsdale College collects all of its online courses at Hillsdale.edu. They're completely free. If you go to Hillsdale.edu, you'll not only find the application for yourself or your son or daughter, or grandson or granddaughter, you'll also find Imprimis, a free speech digest that will come to you the old-fashioned way, in the mail. You'll also find a link to HughForHillsdale.com, where our collected-- every Hillsdale Dialogue we've had since 2013 for your binge listening, beginning with Homer up to the present day.  

This week, we are blitzing a number of subjects. My guest is Dr. Matthew Spalding. He is the director of the Kirby Center, which is Hillsdale's lighthouse of reason in the shadow of the Capitol, a wonderful institution that educates and inspires every single day, not just Hillsdale students, but members of Congress and members of the community. Matt Spalding, I have to ask you to listen with me to a 2 minute and 20 second excerpt of an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Twitter video.  

Now, I'm not one of those who make fun of her. I think she's very charismatic. I think she is going to be a force in the Democratic Party forever. But she says some things in this video which are actually quite destructive of conversation because it's the right side of history argument. I want you to listen to it and respond to it. Here is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talking about climate change, and the people who are on the wrong side of the history, what they're like, cut number 12.  

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: How many years until the world ends again? We have 12 years left to cut emissions by at least 50%, if not more. And for everyone to wants to make a joke about that, you may laugh, but your grandkids will not. So understand that the internet documents everything, and for all those people-- you want to talk about looking in the back of history looking backwards, you look back and you open history books on the civil rights movement, and you see those folks who are protesting against the ability for African-Americans and black Americans to have the right to vote. And they would hold up these bigoted signs and they would hold up signs that said things like, what about white rights, and all of this stuff in the 1950s, 1960s.  

So just know that in the present day, there are a lot of people who hide the fact that their families and that their grandparents fought against principles of equal rights in the United States. Not 100 years ago, not 80 years ago, but in this generation's lifetime. So just know that while a lot of people can hide that their grandparents did that in the civil rights movement, you should also know that the internet documents everything, and your grandchildren will not be able to hide the fact that you fought against acknowledging and taking bold actions on climate change.  

And people who are trying to mock and delay this moment, I just feel bad for you, I just pity you for your role in history right now.  

HEWITT: So, Matt Spalding, first of all, that's not an argument, it's a slander. It compares people who oppose climate change hysteria to a Bull Durham and the racists. Moreover, she had to have named Al Gore Senior as someone-- Bull Connor. Durham is where the movie Best of Enemies is set. It's a very fine movie about desegregation integration in the south that's out this weekend. Bull Connor, of course. What she's doing is saying that if you're opposed to my agenda, you are a racist segregationist, and history will record you as such.  

That is not an argument, that is a slander. It's because she doesn't have an argument because China and India are driving this bus. Your reaction, Matt Spalding?  

SPALDING: No, no, I think that's right. Look, this is an argument about-- I would call this guilt by association. By her own admission, she actually uses the looking backwards of history. This is a problem-- an intellectual problem, on the left especially, but within the term modern Liberalism, that we look at history backwards and we see what we want to see in order to make our argument going forwards. So, I think you're right. She's a serious political figure.  

We underestimate her by, I think, laughing at her too much. This is a pretty ridiculous video. This is like Beto getting his teeth done, but more substantive than that. But, look, she's not Rousseau in the revolution, but I fear she might be more of a Robespierre type. She's pushing the revolution--  

HEWITT: Oh, you just lost all the Steelers fans right there. I got it, but you're going to have to explain that a little bit. She is not a theoretician of the revolution.  

SPALDING: She's not the theoretician, she's not the brains behind it, she's not the modern thinker who's going to write these great books about where the left should go. She's the activist. She's pushing it and she's going to use arguments, whatever is necessary to push that political argument forward. And this is a great example of that. She wants--  

HEWITT: We're not going to argue, by the way. There is an interesting Robespierre analogy here. Stanley McChrystal has got a new book out in which he talks about the leadership qualities of Robespierre. Even though he was a killer, he would remain in his garret. He lived very simply. He lived at the top of the revolution and he dealt with the people until eventually the revolution turned on him. But he was not gouging the revolution. I don't think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is gouging the revolution either, although she's had some FEC complaints.  

SPALDING: No, I'm taking him as a serious figure in history.  

HEWITT: And I think she is.  

SPALDING: He was advancing the revolution, and I think she is. But the point is, sometimes we underestimate her because we expect her to come out with these deep understandings of Liberalism and to make these arguments about what we believe in in great length. That's not what she's doing. It tells you something about where we are in this debate. We're at the point where modern Liberalism thinks they have won the debate intellectually, and now it's about cleaning up and furthering the revolution.  

I think they look back historically and see we've had moments where this has been pushed forward, where progress has advanced, the Progressive Movement, the New Deal, the Great Society. They want to jump start that. They think they've won the debate. Let's push and push hard, which is why they're in a position of taking no prisoners. Within their own party, they will take no prisoners. But also, they're going to associate anybody in any opposition with the worst aspects of history, setting aside whether they get that history right for a moment.  

But they want to associate them politically in the public sense with the worst aspects of history because their objective here is not to win a historical debate or an intellectual debate, but to win a political debate. And I think that's what this shows in spades. This is just-- their minds have been formed so much that these are individuals who are so convinced of the path of history and the arc of history going forward, that they're completely in the activist mode.  

HEWITT: Now what she's trying to do is delegitimize an argument by slandering the people who make it, not because of the argument they are making-- I always make the argument that we need to adapt and mitigate because China and India are not stopping their emissions. But she doesn't want to engage in that. And in fact, you just mentioned--  

SPALDING: No, absolutely not.  

HEWITT: I try and take her very seriously. She's had a bad week because she publicly went out there and said that the amendment limiting the presidency to two terms was passed to stop FDR from winning another term. It, in fact, was not even introduced--  

SPALDING: A little chronological problem there.  

HEWITT: Yeah, he was dead. And it wasn't ratified until 1951 or 1952. And so, she has a problem persuading people of her intellectual heft. I don't think we should focus on that. And our friends over at Media Matters for America, they're always trying to quote me out of context to make it sound like I am dismissing her. I'm not. I think she's a very powerful activist in the way that, as you pointed out, Robespierre became an activist, not an ideologue. It was Rousseau who built the French Revolution. It was Robespierre who carried it out.  

And I think it's AOC and her friends on the far left who want to delegitimize rather than answer the argument, because you don't have to answer an argument of someone who's been delegitimized. I don't have to argue with a white Aryan racist, they're delegitimized. By now, we all know they're evil. But she doesn't want to argue with people who say adapt and mitigate. She wants you to be obliged to accept no more cows, no more cars.  

SPALDING: No, that's right. We're beyond the-- this is why we can say we're in a post-constitutional period here in terms of the debate. It's ideology. We're debating ideology. And as far as she's concerned, it's not a rational debate, this is not a policy discussion, we're not setting up a conversation about climate change at all. This really is about moving the next phase-- the historical phase of the revolution. And doing that is a political question, despite anything having to do with reason or with facts, or history, for that matter. That's a different type of discussion.  

HEWITT: I always have to note because of this guy or gal over at Media Matters-- what do we call them, Dwayne? There's someone over at Media Matters who's listened--  

DWAYNE: Emo.  

HEWITT: Emo. Emo listens to every minute of the show, and they always mischaracterize it. We do not believe that AOC is advocating violence. We don't. We think that AOC is a serious political figure with great charisma and great power. What she is doing is advocating an abandonment of persuasion. She is advocating the abandonment of politics, actually, Matt. She doesn't want to do politics.  

SPALDING: Let me clarify what I mean. When I say revolution, I don't mean it in a violent sense of overthrowing and cutting people's heads off.  

HEWITT: Right.  

SPALDING: I mean it in the sense that we're having-- we have come to a point in our constitutional development, in our politics, that we are now having a debate about whether we should or should not stay within this broad form of constitutionalism that is heretofore defined what was the framework of American politics. And I think as she is acting, as with many people on the progressive left are acting completely outside of that structure, because they think they've defeated it and that debate is over.  

So, in that sense, it's revolutionary intellectually and politically to be-- it's a transformative thing. They've established those battles, we fought them in the past, and now we're moving forward, regardless of what you think about the particulars. And that is a denial of-- when I say broadly constitutionalism, it's denial of a notion that there is a framework called the rule of law by which we as citizens of different political parties have rational and reasonable discussions about differences, and they're settled through the process of representation and voting and debate and legal decisions.  

And I think the modern left wants to-- sees all that as barriers. It's all in the way of progress, so let's move it forward, let's get around all that by going directly to an ideological debate--  

HEWITT: And to do so in a way that--  

SPALDING: --regardless of the facts.  

HEWITT: --that cuts off debate. And I'll be right back to continue to debate about Brexit with Dr. Matthew Spalding of the Kirby Center at Hillsdale.edu.  

Welcome back, America, to the ReliefFactor.com Studio. My thanks again to Matt Spalding, soon to be a dad. Bruna-- we think that should be her name, Bruna. That's the feminine of Bruno Mars. I am joined in my Hillsdale Dialogue today by none other than Dr. Matthew Spalding of the Kirby Center.  

And, Matt, I want to close with our fourth subject of the day. We've been moving through stuff. Normally, we do big issues and long ago. But there's so much happening that is of consequence for many hundreds of years. One of those things is in the United Kingdom, where Theresa May, today, is on her knees asking, begging the EU for an extension of Article 50, in what is, to my way of thinking, a complete repudiation of the people's right to rule in Great Britain. It is astonishing to me. She should resign. Everybody but her knows that.  

I could have negotiated a better Brexit deal from my radio studio in California. It is absurd that the United Kingdom is on its knees asking Germany to let it do-- what is your reaction to this total collapse of popular-- of free democracy in Britain?  

SPALDING: Look, the arguments for Brexit, which was for Great Britain exiting the European Union, was that the European Union has become increasingly heavy handed, regulatory, and we want to rule ourselves. Great Britain votes to exit. The prime minister was there to carry out that decision, but she brings into her cabinet people who want to remain. Remember, she was in favor of remaining. She did not want to-- she did not favor Brexit. And so, her cabinet is mixed on this.  

And she's been delicate about it the whole time, trying to figure out how to do it, but really not do it. So, I think it proves a couple of things. At this point, this is actually less about the European Union, and more about England and the politics in that country right now, which is this is a monumental wasted opportunity in which an independent country could re-establish its independence and show that they can govern themselves outside the European Union as a model for the rest of the Western nations outside of this regulatory monstrosity in a way that would show that it's possible to have an independent economy and a nation. And it's just a complete disaster.  

I think it's a terrible missed opportunity, and I think that the problem lies here at the feet of the prime minister. And among other things, it shows you a problem with a parliamentary system, the idea that she was the executive of that country, meant to carry out the will of the British people. And she has not from day one-- and I think that is now patently obvious. She's moved to try to cut deals with the Labor Party. Now she's on her knees asking for an extension. It's a disaster. I think she needs to be replaced. But the problem is that this reveals a lot about the state of British politics.  

Who's going to step in and do this in a way that would actually carry it out without being a worse disaster? Are we going to turn it over to the-- is this going to be turned over to the hard-left Socialists over there? This really is a bad thing. I think the Conservative Party. It is actually in a tough position, perhaps in a position where they might lose a lot.  

HEWITT: They may splinter. I am reminded when the British Liberal Party split, when Joseph Chamberlain left. I'm reminded of when Robert Peel, 200 years ago-- not personally remembered, but Robert Peel split the Conservative Party over the Corn Laws. Right now, Theresa May is close to splitting the Conservative Party between the remain and the leave that would then empower Jeremy Corbyn, a Marxist, to be the-- I think the Five Eyes agreement, where the free peoples of the world combine their surveillance techniques will be in peril, because I don't trust Corbyn and a lot of people don't trust Corbyn not to give everything to the communists and to the dictators of the world.  

So, this is a real moment where if they would go hard Brexit and put Michael Gove or Rob or Boris Johnson, or one of the serious people, Liam Fox, in charge, they'd go hard Brexit.  

SPALDING: That's right.  

HEWITT: And they'd start to negotiate from, OK, we're at the WTO. The United States trades with Europe. If the UK leaves on a hard crash out, they'll just go negotiate with Europe. I don't understand it.  

SPALDING: So, look, this is a nice case study, a model of a larger problem in Western constitutional countries in the modern era. We, meaning the United States and Western Europe, have all moved towards these modern, bureaucratic, administrative centralized ways of governing, and we have now-- all of us collectively are coming to a point where we need to make decisions about whether that's the way we want to live, or do we want to go in a different direction?  

We're having those debates here, which among other things, produced somebody called Donald Trump. They're having that debate there, and it's in the context of Brexit. If this completely fails and the Conservative Party is split and England goes to the Marxist, you've lost your one example and possibility of breaking from that mode of governance in Western Europe. And so now we're left alone trying to make this battle against this administrative form of ruling and trying to assert self-government. England needs to succeed in this to establish that as a possibility. And if they don't, that would be a terrible loss for Western civilization.  

HEWITT: They need to succeed in leaving the EU-- they need to. Matt Spalding, Director of the Kirby Center. Thank you for doing this week's Hillsdale Dialogue. All things Hillsdale are found at Hillsdale.edu.