Speaker 1: Instead of our regularly scheduled Clips of the Week, which
Speaker 1: will happen in just a few minutes. We're looking forward
Speaker 1: to talking to ln Hitchen, David and Diane Stephy, fellow
Speaker 1: in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution, the
Speaker 1: director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University, frequent commentator
Speaker 1: on CNN, and rumored to be running for high office.
Speaker 1: Mr Chen, how are you, sir? Hey, Joe. Good to
Speaker 1: do with you this morning. Great, It's always a pleasure
Speaker 1: to talk. So listen, we've kind of been bugging you
Speaker 1: to run for office because we think your ideas are
Speaker 1: sound and productive. Are you actually can we talk about this?
Speaker 1: Are you thinking you're running for office in cal Unicornia?
Speaker 1: I am. I am considering it seriously because you know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot of these problems, Joe. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think what it comes down to is we've got
Speaker 1: some basic, very basic sort of blocking and tackling issues
Speaker 1: that we need to handle in California. We just don't
Speaker 1: seemed to be doing the basic things right. And I
Speaker 1: think bringing a sort of common sense, ideas based approach
Speaker 1: is kind of what we need. And that's why I'm
Speaker 1: looking at an office like controller, which you know, I
Speaker 1: people don't really think very much about it, maybe no
Speaker 1: very much about but has a tremendous opportunity to change
Speaker 1: things for the better. And that's why I'm looking at it. Well,
Speaker 1: let's first of all talk about what the controller does.
Speaker 1: What do they do well? The controllers actually the think
Speaker 1: of it as a chief financial officer for the state
Speaker 1: of California, the person who is in charge of overseeing
Speaker 1: the finances, how we're spending the state's money, accounting for
Speaker 1: all of that, making sure that when politicians make promises,
Speaker 1: they're held accountable for it. And unfortunately, if you look
Speaker 1: back over the last I don't know, twenty years, the
Speaker 1: controller really hasn't done any of that, you know, really
Speaker 1: hasn't held anybody responsible for anything. You know, We've got
Speaker 1: all of these different crises in our state, all these
Speaker 1: different things that are going on, and the controller probably
Speaker 1: could have made things better along the way many times
Speaker 1: and simply didn't. So, you know, I just take one
Speaker 1: basic example where there was a report that last year
Speaker 1: the controller was responsible for signing off on over three
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars spending billion with a B but could
Speaker 1: not produce a line item list of where all that
Speaker 1: money went. Now, that's right, and I understand the other
Speaker 1: forty nine states were able to. It's a very basic thing, right, Joe.
Speaker 1: I mean, you think about your family, you think about
Speaker 1: any business, and it's like if if if you went
Speaker 1: out and said, you know, we spent a bunch of money,
Speaker 1: I actually don't know where we spent it. First of all,
Speaker 1: if you were a business owner, you'd be in jail.
Speaker 1: If if you were a family trying to budget that way,
Speaker 1: you'd be bankrupt. And yet we continue to allow the
Speaker 1: state to do these sorts of things, and nobody wants
Speaker 1: to do anything about it. So I think it's time
Speaker 1: for voters to say, you know what, enough is enough,
Speaker 1: and let's let's switch things up and have accountability for
Speaker 1: a change. Well, I would absolutely love to see that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the examples of scandal and wastefulness are legion
Speaker 1: from the defrauding of the Apartment of Unemployment. That's not
Speaker 1: the proper name, but that's what it is. Thirty perhaps
Speaker 1: forty billion dollars to the utter obscenity that is the
Speaker 1: regular train. I won't call it a bullet train because
Speaker 1: it's not going to be a bullet train. It's the
Speaker 1: suburbs of Fresno to suburbs of Bakersfield, sixty billion dollar
Speaker 1: train nobody wants. My concern is, and you can address
Speaker 1: those if you want, but my concern is California voters
Speaker 1: are so brutally unaware of the way the states being
Speaker 1: run that that you can't get their attention. Well, frankly,
Speaker 1: it's it's the job of candidates, and if I become
Speaker 1: a candidate, I'm gonna spend every day trying to help
Speaker 1: California voters understand these are the basic issues that we
Speaker 1: need to get fixed. And this is not a partisan thing, Joe.
Speaker 1: You know, I get a lot of questions a well,
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're well known to be somebody who's
Speaker 1: right of center, who's got views about fiscal conservatism. How's
Speaker 1: that going to play in California. I have not talked
Speaker 1: to a single voter, whether they're liberal or conservative or
Speaker 1: in the middle, who looks at something like you've referred
Speaker 1: to the fraud in the unemployment insurance system thirty billion
Speaker 1: dollars at least a fraud and by the way, bigger
Speaker 1: than Bernie made off, Bigger than all sorts of different
Speaker 1: frauds that we've seen, probably the biggest fraud at the
Speaker 1: governmental level, at the state governmental level and the history
Speaker 1: of our country. Nobody looks at it and says, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd like that to continue. You know. Nobody looks at
Speaker 1: the challenges with the choo Choo train that that you've
Speaker 1: talked about, where there's all these promises made about the spending,
Speaker 1: creating jobs, creating a train. We still have a train
Speaker 1: to nowhere. I've talked to no California who thinks, hey,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea, let's continue that. So I think
Speaker 1: part of the challenge Jo, You're right is that people
Speaker 1: are really busy with their lives, and they should be.
Speaker 1: But part of the job of public officials is to
Speaker 1: raise the attention and the awareness on these issues and
Speaker 1: talk about them and say how can we fix them,
Speaker 1: as opposed to continuing to cover them up and just
Speaker 1: perpetuating the Sacramento monopoly that exists right now. Amen to that.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Alan hi Chen, who Politico listed twice
Speaker 1: on their annual list of Thinkers, do or and visionaries
Speaker 1: the top fifty in American politics. Uh thinking about running
Speaker 1: for the controller gig in California, which is essentially, as
Speaker 1: he told us, the CFO of California. You know, you're
Speaker 1: also an educator, and as an educator, i'd love to
Speaker 1: have your perspective on the story we've been talking about
Speaker 1: the last couple of days. This is high school in
Speaker 1: northern California where a passer by, a student passed by
Speaker 1: a classroom in the hallway, glanced in saw Nazi flag,
Speaker 1: went to the administration said I'm disturbed by that, and
Speaker 1: they have suspended the teacher and launched a full investigation.
Speaker 1: And and now everybody's going to pieces and afraid to
Speaker 1: talk and the rest of it. What's happening in education
Speaker 1: these days? What the hell is that? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry that he was teaching World War two,
Speaker 1: specifically a senior seminar on propaganda and symbols. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things in general about our our system
Speaker 1: of education is that one of the I don't know,
Speaker 1: basic hallmarks of of education in the classroom is the
Speaker 1: ability of educators to um to to essentially teach based
Speaker 1: on the things that they believe are our best for
Speaker 1: the students in their classrooms. And we have this principle
Speaker 1: of local control of education, which is also very important
Speaker 1: and and and so one of the challenges we have
Speaker 1: is this concept of academic freedom, which was supposed to
Speaker 1: be core and central, particularly at the university level. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the level I'm familiar with. It's where I where
Speaker 1: I teach. And I'll just say that the measure of
Speaker 1: academic freedom that we see in the classroom at the
Speaker 1: university level, uh, it just isn't the same as it
Speaker 1: used to be. You used to be you could present
Speaker 1: lots of different alternate points of view and say, look,
Speaker 1: you know, you, as a student get to choose. And
Speaker 1: now the idea that you would present certain points of
Speaker 1: view is for vote. You know, you you you, you
Speaker 1: will be under attack unless you present a particular point
Speaker 1: of view, a particular way of thinking about the world.
Speaker 1: And that's not academic freedom. And by the way, that's
Speaker 1: not how we strengthen the minds of young people, but
Speaker 1: the way we strengthen the minds of young people in
Speaker 1: our educational systems to say, well, here's all sorts of ideas.
Speaker 1: You figure out which ideas you believe in, and you
Speaker 1: a spouse and defend those ideas. So I'm a little
Speaker 1: worried that the concept of academic freedom is going away,
Speaker 1: and that's something that's been degraded for for many many
Speaker 1: years now. Well, and what's truly frightening is the enforcement
Speaker 1: mechanism for that is a bunch of a bunch of
Speaker 1: students who we have taught to have pathologies. We've given
Speaker 1: them pathologies, like the idea that if they are challenged
Speaker 1: or here's something they don't like, that's an offense, they've
Speaker 1: been aggrieved, there should be uh, some sort of repercussion
Speaker 1: for that, which is a bizarre idea. Yeah. I mean again,
Speaker 1: this gets back to, you know, do we punish people
Speaker 1: for expressing different points of view? Uh? You know, do
Speaker 1: we do we punish educators? Do we punish students who
Speaker 1: want to express different points of view? Now, of course,
Speaker 1: there are certain points of view that are arguably be
Speaker 1: on the bounds of uh, you know, civil and normal conversation,
Speaker 1: and we can have a conversation about how you deal
Speaker 1: with those things. But fundamentally, the concept of academic freedom
Speaker 1: means that in a marketplace of ideas, the bad ideas
Speaker 1: get defeated, the good ideas rise to the top. And
Speaker 1: that's the kind of system we want because it reflects
Speaker 1: what happens in American society. You know, we are a
Speaker 1: pluralistic place. People are allowed to express different points of view,
Speaker 1: and you know that there are very specific requirements the constitutions.
Speaker 1: That's about freedom of speech, and we need to be
Speaker 1: serious about that. And and that extends to the classroom.
Speaker 1: We want to have in the classroom freedom of thought,
Speaker 1: freedom of expression, and we allow people to debate reasonable ideas.
Speaker 1: And I think that's something unfortunately you just see less
Speaker 1: on less of these days. Lyne Channel the Hoover Institution
Speaker 1: and Stanford University on the line. In a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes we have left. Let's do a little compare and
Speaker 1: contrast between the challenges the divide, if you will, in
Speaker 1: the GOP, the Trumpers and the no More Trump and
Speaker 1: the battle going on in the Democratic Party between the
Speaker 1: Wolke crowd is personified by the squad and the mainstream Democrats.
Speaker 1: Who's got the bigger challenge or how do you see
Speaker 1: those two divides? Well, first of all, you're right, Joe,
Speaker 1: to talk about the divide on both sides of the
Speaker 1: political spectrum. There's a tendency to focus on gosh, look
Speaker 1: at the Civil War quote unquote in the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: And the point I make is, look, both sides have
Speaker 1: these divisions that are driving, uh, you know, the politics
Speaker 1: of both sides, unfortunately towards towards what I think are
Speaker 1: are more extreme positions on the on the left and
Speaker 1: certainly some of that on the right. Um. My own
Speaker 1: view on what's happening amongst conservatives and the Republican Party
Speaker 1: is I think we ought to be focused on welcoming
Speaker 1: as many people as we can into the conservative movement
Speaker 1: into the Republican Party. We should be creating a bigger tent,
Speaker 1: not a smaller one. And so what I would love
Speaker 1: to see is instead of talking about how do we
Speaker 1: make the party better by subtraction or how do we
Speaker 1: make the movement better by something action, I think we
Speaker 1: should talk about how do we make it better by addition? Uh?
Speaker 1: And I don't see that on the left, by the way,
Speaker 1: I think there is a very strong desire amongst many
Speaker 1: on the left to cancel voices that are considered more
Speaker 1: reasonable or more moderate. And I'd hate to see the
Speaker 1: same thing happen on the political right as well. Be
Speaker 1: here here, I think Hispanic America is going to be
Speaker 1: a force for conservatism within twenty years personally and Asian
Speaker 1: Americans too, by the way I think, I think, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of uh, you know, racial and ethnic
Speaker 1: minorities in this country. They want to be able to
Speaker 1: maximize their freedom, to increase their opportunity and be in
Speaker 1: a society where you know, they can raise their families
Speaker 1: peacefully and with the knowledge that we have the rule
Speaker 1: of law. And those are all basic principles. By the
Speaker 1: way that I know, I mean certainly many conservatives I
Speaker 1: know a spouse, and and so I think making the
Speaker 1: case in that way, Joe is part of the challenge,
Speaker 1: and it's it's something that I you know, take very seriously.
Speaker 1: If you do decide to run for office, let me
Speaker 1: know the maximum contribution. I'll give you a triple that. Okay, well, Michael,
Speaker 1: let it that out when this hairs. Yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I I appreciate that. Joe and Lani Chandens the David
Speaker 1: and Diane Stephie Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at
Speaker 1: the Hoover Institution, Director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University. Lani,
Speaker 1: great to talk to you, have a great week. Thank
Speaker 1: you and