Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen, a veteran of four presidential campaigns and the George W. Bush administration, joins Secrets of Statecraft to discuss why good policy so often fails politically. Drawing on his time as Mitt Romney’s chief policy advisor and his run for California State Controller, Chen discusses bipartisan healthcare reform, tax simplification, and the threat to Taiwan. He also criticizes California’s Prop 50 redistricting push, the muddled war in Iran, and Trump’s hold over the 2028 Republican nomination. He closes with reflections on California’s future, and what might have been had Romney won in the Presidential election in 2012.
Books
How can we make better decisions—especially when the stakes are highest? In Judgment Calls, historian Zachary Shore tackles this timeless puzzle with intellectual daring and uncommon range.
November 1, 2026
Articles
The midterms were a regular shellacking, not a political paradigm shift. From Eisenhower to Nixon, history offers some useful lessons about what happens when a second term turns sour.
November 10, 2026
Articles
The world breathed a sigh of relief when, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—November 11, 1918—the guns fell silent. The Great War, as World War One was then known, was over in Europe.
November 11, 2026
