Bill Whalen
Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism at the Hoover Institution, where he writes and comments on campaigns, elections, governance, California politics, and U.S. political affairs. He hosts Hoover’s Matters of Policy & Politics podcast, moderates the GoodFellows broadcast, and hosts The Hoover Book Club.
California Wealth-Tax Deal Nears Deadline as Unions Split Over Revenue
In a Hoover Institution California update, Bill Whalen and Lee Ohanian argue that the state’s politics are being shaped by institutional strain more than any single scandal. They say the federal investigation of Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel Newsom could help Newsom cast himself as a Trump target in a Democratic presidential race, while exposing family finances and behested payments to deeper scrutiny. They also frame California’s election rules, Xavier Becerra’s likely succession, and a possible deal to avert a billionaire wealth-tax ballot fight as evidence of a system increasingly governed by distrust, weak execution, and interest-group bargaining.
U.S.-Iran Memorandum Trades Leverage for a Fragile Midterm Quiet
Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster, and John Cochrane argue that the draft U.S.-Iran memorandum looks less like a settlement than a political pause that gives Tehran money and time while leaving the nuclear question unresolved. In a Hoover GoodFellows discussion, they differ on whether unintended consequences could still weaken Iran’s regime, but largely agree that Washington had leverage in the Strait of Hormuz and failed to use it. They extend that concern to Ukraine and Cuba, framing the central problem as American pressure applied without follow-through.
U.S.-Iran Memorandum Trades Hormuz Relief for Unresolved Nuclear Questions
Hoover fellows Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster and John Cochrane read the reported U.S.-Iran memorandum less as a peace settlement than as a bid to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while postponing the nuclear dispute and front-loading concessions to Tehran. They largely agree the draft looks weak; their disagreement is over whether it buys time for a harder strategy later, creates space for pressure inside Iran, or signals a loss of U.S. will that allies and adversaries will now test.
Iran Ceasefire Debate Turns on Whether Tehran or Washington Has Leverage
Hoover Institution fellows H.R. McMaster, Niall Ferguson and John Cochrane use a mailbag discussion to test questions of war, leadership and institutional resilience against a common standard: whether policy connects means to political ends. Their sharpest disagreement is over Iran, where McMaster argues Tehran is weak and should face more pressure, while Ferguson says it has more room to wait out Washington than the Trump administration expected; Cochrane presses the underlying incentives that make voluntary Iranian nuclear concessions unlikely.
The Declaration of Independence Endures as America’s Unity Document
Historian Michael Auslin argues in his new book, National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America, that the Declaration’s endurance rests not only on its claims about liberty and equality but on its assertion that Americans are “one people.” In this Hoover Institution discussion, Auslin presents the Declaration as a unity document whose authority grew through compromise, preservation, reproduction and repeated use by later movements seeking fuller membership in the American project.
Iran Standoff Tests Whether Washington Manages Wars or Wins Them
In this GoodFellows mailbag, Hoover fellows H.R. McMaster, Niall Ferguson and John Cochrane treat the Iran standoff as the central test of American strategy. McMaster argues Washington should stop managing the conflict and intensify pressure on a weakened regime, while Ferguson warns Tehran may be waiting for oil-price and market pain to force the United States into a worse bargain; around that dispute, the three extend the same standard to war leadership, institutional decline, Europe, climate policy and populism: policy has to connect means to political ends rather than substitute rhetoric for results.
California’s Revenue Windfall Masks a Narrow and Mobile Tax Base
In a Hoover Institution California update, Bill Whalen and Lee Ohanian argue that the state’s newly balanced budget reflects another capital-gains windfall rather than a sounder fiscal model. They say California remains dependent on a narrow group of high-income, mobile taxpayers, with AI and possible IPOs offering more revenue upside while reinforcing the same volatility. The discussion extends that critique into state and Los Angeles politics, where they see unsettled Democratic fields and Spencer Pratt’s mayoral bid as symptoms of frustration with incumbent governance.
Coal Company Towns Left a Legacy of Weak Government and Public Mistrust
Hoover fellow Elizabeth Elder argues in her book Company Towns that mistrust of government in former coal communities is rooted less in abstract anti-government ideology than in generations of local experience with weak, captured, or corrupt public institutions. In her account, coal companies often kept local governments small, blurred public authority with company power, and substituted private provision for public capacity. When coal declined, those towns were left not only with job losses but with governments many residents had little reason to see as competent, independent, or democratically accountable.
Fellows Split Over Whether the Constitution Is Too Hard to Amend
At the first public taping of Hoover’s GoodFellows, John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson and H.R. McMaster used the Constitution as a text for argument rather than commemoration. Cochrane warned against treating it as scripture and stressed the civic “spirit” behind it, McMaster described an imperfect founding grounded in principles, and Ferguson stated a broad First Amendment position. Their clearest split came over amendment: Ferguson said the process no longer works in practice, while Cochrane argued its history shows it has sometimes been too available.
Clinton’s Russia Policy Began With Cooperation, Not NATO Encirclement
Rose Gottemoeller, a former senior U.S. arms control official and NATO deputy secretary general, uses her book Security Through Cooperation to challenge the Kremlin’s account of post-Cold War U.S. policy toward Russia. In her telling, the Clinton administration’s first instinct was not encirclement through NATO enlargement but an effort to build a durable security, economic and political relationship with Moscow, rooted in nuclear risk reduction, space cooperation and practical diplomacy. That argument leads to a more conditional conclusion about the present: cooperation served U.S. security before, she says, but cannot be restored in full while Vladimir Putin remains in the Kremlin.