The Manhattan Institute for Research and Policy’s president Reihan Salam joined Hugh for the first time today to discuss the Institute’s and The City Journal’s mission set after a weekend of incredibly dark new:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: So pleased to bring for the very first time to the Hugh Hewitt Show Reihan Salam, who is the president of the Manhattan Institute. Before that, he was the executive editor of National Review. He’s been around for a while, but our paths have never crossed. So I’ve read his work for a long time. Reihan, welcome. It’s good to meet you virtually through the magic of Zoom and on the radio and the Salem News Channel. Thank you for joining me today.

RS: Thanks for having me, Hugh. It’s a great honor. I really appreciate the time.

HH: What I’d like to start with, I have a traditional two questions that I ask every first-time guest, and they’re kind of whacky. But hang with me, and I’ll explain it. First of all, was Alger Hiss a Communist spy?

RS: As far as I can tell, the answer seems like a resounding yes.

HH: All right. Correct. Number two, and have you read The Looming Tower?

RS: I am afraid I have not. I know that it’s an incredibly important book. I know that I ought to read it, so I’m embarrassed to say that I have not.

HH: All right, well, that’s one and a half out of two, and I’m glad to begin there.

RS: (laughing)

HH: Reihan, I wanted to cover with you today the work of the Institute, and then go into my four hot spots. But could you explain for the audience what the Manhattan Institute does and does so well, and has been doing for so many years?

RS: The Manhattan Institute is a research and advocacy organization that has a deep interest in the American future in America’s cities, and ensuring that we have a bright future as a multi-ethnic republic that celebrates achievement, excellence, that cultivates opportunity, that is really a society that rewards hard work, you know, that wants safe cities that are safe and secure. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in those time-tested principles that have made this country rich, strong, free.

HH: And how do you go about the work?

RS: Well, there are a few different elements to how we do that, Hugh. One thing we do that’s a really long-standing and important commitment is we really believe in the power of investigative journalism. So you know, we’re a small organization, but we believe that what we can do to advance the American experiment is keep other powerful institutions accountable. And a big part of how we do that is through our magazine, City Journal. We do a lot of investigative journalism to really ensure that our core American institutions are living up to their ideals. That’s why we spend a lot of time on higher education. We spend a lot of time on our law enforcement agencies making sure they have the resources that they need, making sure that they’re acting with integrity. That’s why we look at K-12 schools. How is the rising generation actually being taught? We care a lot about corruption. We care a lot about whether or not institutions are living up to the values that they ought to be living up to in order to be really effective. So journalism is a really core part of that. We also have a number of policy scholars who have really deep expertise who need the time and space in order to do long-term projects to understand how to reform and revitalize our institutions. So those two elements of what we do really work in tandem. One thing that we’ve done in recent years, we’ve really embraced a kind of activist posture. So it’s one thing to identify policy solutions, and we do that. We do that really well. But we also believe that we need to draw public attention to things that are going wrong, you know, through our investigative journalism. In some cases, through social media campaigns, just try to really hold institutions accountable to the best of our ability.

HH: Now before I turn to some specifics, how do people find out what the Manhattan Institute is doing, and if they are moved, sponsor your work?

RS: If you go to Manhattan.Institute, you can find our website. You can find the breadth of research that we publish. You can visit CityJournal.org. That’s another great place to go. We have a number of newsletters that you can subscribe to to really keep track with the breadth of our work. But Manhattan.Institute, visit that website. That’s a good one stop shop to see everything that we’re working on.

HH: All right, now Reihan, I’m going to tell you the Hugh Hewitt view of the world and find out where we agree and disagree.

RS: Please.

HH: I think that the United States is the greatest country in the history of the world, that Western Civilization is the greatest civilization, and that we have four enemies – China, Russia, Islamist fundamentalism, and the fraying of what I’ll call the American consensus. And that consensus, I mean our Constitutional order and the values within the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the old, what was the Lincoln quote, the Declaration is the apple of gold within the frame of silver. Are my priorities matched up with yours or the Institute’s?

RS: Absolutely.

HH: All right.

RS: We chiefly focus on domestic policy, Hugh, but I believe that you’re dead-on about all of those priorities.

HH: Okay, so we’re coming out of a horrific weekend. Number one, we had the massacre of Jews and I believe some non-Jews, at Australia’s Bondi Beach, and the murder of Americans in Syria, and that’s put down to Islamist fanaticism. We had the massacre at Brown, which is the fraying of the American consensus. We had the conviction of Jimmy Lai in China in a show trial. The man might die in jail by the totalitarians who run that country unless President Trump and Secretary Rubio intervene. And we have the ongoing criminal war of Russia against Ukraine, their rejection of a ceasefire, their demand that the EU not take their mourning. So we look at those four big threats. How would you expect a serious person to respond? Let’s begin with the massacre of Jews at the beach on Hannukah.

RS: Well, this is an abomination. This is incredibly, incredibly dangerous, and it is part of this kind of pervasive mental disease. It is a blend of many different ideas. It’s not one single phenomenon, but what you’re seeing is, in the one case, you see Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism as a weaponized ideology. Then, you also have what you might call third worldism, a subject that I know you’ve thought deeply about, Hugh. But this basically posture that is deeply anti-Western that draws on Marxist ideas, that draws on a range of different leftist ideas, and so-called anti-colonial ideas that have kind of come together in the form of this opposition to so-called settler colonialism that is really focused on Israel right now in the moment, but also represents a larger, profound threat to every Western society. I think that this ideological idea has been carried forward by many institutions of higher education. You see it even within K-12 schools more and more, and this is not unique to the United States. You see it in societies like Australia as well. You see it in Western societies around the world. And it’s something that has served to dehumanize the Jewish people. It has served to anathematize the State of Israel in its struggle for survival. And it’s something that, again, is chipping away at that American consensus that you were talking about here at home. And the foundations of these historic Western nation-states that are being taught to embrace self-abnegation, that are being taught to deny their own histories, that are being taught to be ashamed of their histories. They’re being offered, in its place, this kind of bizarre Utopian ideology, the idea that you can have a society without sin, a society that is perfectly just. And in order to achieve that, all you have to do is destroy every aspect of our cultural inheritance that has in fact given rise to the world’s most decent, tolerant, inclusive, capable wealth-producing societies. So I think that this kind of romantic antinomian set of ideas, you know, just is a set of ideas that is serving as an acid in our societies. And one of the ironies is that the partisans of these ideas, of these anti-Western ideas, present themselves as the champions of tolerance, and having that kind of open, creative civilization when in fact what they’re doing is they’re destroying the sinews of the societies that have come closest to being genuinely open, dynamic, creative, societies that have really, in practice, actually fostered immense upward mobility, wealth creation, you name it. So I mean, this is a massive, massive struggle. And for me and my colleagues, this really feels like battle number one. It’s a war of ideas that we have to win.

HH: I agree with that, and I also think that the Manhattan Institute, as is given away by its name, is at the figurative Ground Zero not far from the literal Ground Zero with the election of Mr. Mandani as its mayor. Are you going to have to, we have a minute to the break. Are you going to have to double up on your output for the next years?

RS: The short answer is yes, because I really believe that America needs an American conservatism that is disciplined, smart, thoughtful in meeting the challenge of this third wordlist, anti-Western ideology. We need to renew the foundations of a kind of dynamic market economy. We need an economy that young people can believe in. And I think that on both of those different fronts, we’re really very much at the center of the debate. And our talent has very much been at the center of those debates, too.

HH: I’m going to be right back with Reihan. Don’t go anywhere, America. A lot more to cover with him. Stay tuned to the Hugh Hewitt Show.

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HH: Tough weekend story number two, Reihan, is that the massacre at Brown, we don’t know much about it other than almost incredible incompetence by law enforcement and follow-up, and that one of the victims was the head of the Republicans at Brown. Don’t know if it was targeted or not, yet, and something was shouted that no one will tell us was shouted at the beginning of the attack. This goes to the fraying of the American consensus, meaning that you can go to university and disagree. How do we put this back together again? Or do we just hope in the University of Austin and also Hillsdale and a handful of other institutions to renew the country?

RS: Well, there are so many different aspects to this tragedy. One aspect is just a real reminder that law enforcement undergirds a civilized society. And I’m someone who is a limited government conservative, but I also believe that we need state capacity when it comes to law enforcement. Our law enforcement personnel need to have the tools, they need to have the resources. They need to be celebrated. We need law enforcement to be a profession that is attracting the best and brightest. This is just a sine qua non. We have to do it. It’s absolutely essential. It needs to be respected. It needs to be celebrated. That’s really, really, really important. But then, when it comes to that decline that you’re describing, again, we don’t know exactly what happened here, but I will tell you, Hugh, you know, we have a profound mental health crisis that is unfolding in our country at the same time that we have institutions of higher education, educational institutions across the board that seem to have been losing sight of their mission. What is their job? How is it that they undergird a free society? And I think that that is just a big, larger, complex challenge. I believe that there are good people at a place like Brown University who are doing their best to do the right thing.

HH: Yeah.

RS: But I really just don’t know exactly what the motivation was here, but I do know that there’s something going wrong with our young people and their formation, their cultural and intellectual formation. And you know, in this case, Brown University is not a perfect institution, but these kids were victims. I have no idea where this guy came from, what he was trying to do, but however imperfect this place is, it is a citadel of learning. And those young people should have been able to be safe. They should have been able to learn together. And that is a real tragedy that this has happened. So you know, again, hard for me to say with any great detail about exactly what happened in this case, but thank goodness for those folks in law enforcement who are trying to piece together what happened here and trying to restore a sense of safety.

HH: Now a shout out to City Journal and the work of Chrsitopher Rufo. I think he’s done some path-breaking eye-opening in the course of what’s gone with our institutional rot that yields this. Third big subject, Jimmy Lai is found guilty by the agents of the Leninist totalitarians under Xi’s thumb. I don’t know if we’ll get him out. President Trump has told me, Secretary Rubio’s told me on this program that they are committed to that. But what do you think about China and Xi? Is it, are we back to the Cold War again?

RS: Hugh, I am very concerned about the Chinese threat, because I believe that China is a more formidable rival than we faced in our entire history. If you look at Nazi Germany, Nazi Germany was not a true peer competitor as China is right now. Even the Soviet Union represented a really formidable ideological threat, and of course, was enormous, sprawling, large population, but they were nowhere near where China is today in terms of their sophistication. They’re right at the technological frontier. And also, look, they represent a different kind of ideological threat, but they do indeed represent an ideological threat. And I really believe that what is being done to Jimmy Lai is a tragedy, and it represents the difference between a society like ours that is based on respect for the individual, and a society like theirs in which you have people who have been incredibly creative, accomplished entrepreneurs who see everything going away in a nanosecond because they run afoul of the political authorities. You know, there’s this notion that you have property rights in China. No, you don’t. You don’t have meaningful property rights the second that you run afoul of the regime. That is a system that is not worthy of the genius and accomplishment of the Chinese people. And I think that when you look at the United States, you know, one of the weird ironies about where we are right now, Hugh, is that our country is a country that has allowed real Chinese genius to unfold. When you look at people of Chinese origin who have come to our country, who have assimilated into our Western tradition but have also preserved some aspects of the best of the Chinese tradition, look at what they’ve managed to accomplish. Look at the incredible wealth they’ve been able to build. Look at the cultural flourishing you’ve seen. And I think that says something about our country and our creative potential. And I want to see Chinese civilization thrive. But I think that that is very much in tension with the Chinese Communist Party achieving its own objective, which is to rule always and forever, to brook no dissent, to prevent other voices, other political ideas from emerging and taking root. And I understand you want stability. You want public safety. You want that. But then, they’re also squelching human creativity, and I think that’s what you’ve seen in the Jimmy Lai case, and it’s a tragedy.

HH: All right, my last big talking point, and then the good news, is that Russia’s a criminal regime run by a gangster and a mass murderer. And we may have to do a deal with him. Sometimes, you do. FDR and Churchill dealt with Stalin. But it seems to me moral clarity is missing from the United States about that. Do you think we can get that back? Is there any meaningful effort to get it back, that Russia is evil as is run by Putin, and that we need to call it out that way?

RS: Well, I don’t need to tell you that the Russians have demonstrated very clearly that they are willing to do absolutely anything in order to divide Western societies, in order to kill not just Russian dissidents who dare to call out the regime for the horrors that it’s inflicted on the Russian people, let’s leave aside the Ukrainian people. They have been willing to engage in extra-judicial, extra-territorial killings, assassinations. That represents a grave threat to our sovereignty. When you look at the ways in which they’ve been willing to, eager to, the ways that they’ve invested in disrupting our information environment, you know, that’s a real threat that we conservatives need to be really mindful of. So when it comes to getting to that moral clarity, you said it yourself. Right now, a lot of Americans are feeling exhausted. They are very concerned about whether we’re husbanding our resources to tackle domestic challenges that we face, social and cultural challenges that we face. I get that. But look, the Russians do represent a potent threat, and we need to be clear-eyed about it. So are we going to get there? I think that we will, because I think that this regime, it’s going to prove out. The evidence is going to be undeniable about what it is they intend to do to us. And I think that, you know, a lot of folks are going to have to wise up.

HH: I’m going to continue my conservation with Reihan for a couple more minutes about those things upon which we can perhaps lay our hopes or post our hopes on. That’ll be over at my YouTube podcast and on the podcast tomorrow. But I want to thank him on air for joining me today. The Manhattan Institute, must-support institution. CityJournal.org if you want to get the best magazine in America that’s serious about ideas. I’ll be right back.

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HH: So I’m back for one short off-air segment with Reihan Salam, who is the president of the Manhattan Institute, because I can get bogged down with guests when I talk about my two favorite solutions. The first is the Constitution as interpreted by a Supreme Court of nine with an originalist majority. It doesn’t hurt to have some dissents to argue about originalism gone amuck, but I think packing the Court would destroy the rule of law, and that Democrats are devoted to it. Manhattan Institute, non-partisan, don’t want to get you into trouble, but what do you think about court packing and what it would do to the republic?

RS: I believe it represents a very serious danger. It would destabilize our entire system of government. It would open the door to all sorts of really radical revisions to our Constitutional order that wouldn’t just be revisions, that would be an overturning of our Constitutional order, a Constitutional order that has fostered the greatest, most powerful, most dynamic, most prosperous society in the history of the world. So there are a lot of folks who think that this is not going to affect them directly. And I’ve got to tell you, you’re wrong about that. When you think about, hey, all I care about is living in a safe neighborhood, I care about making a living. I care about supporting my kids and grandkids, let me tell you, court packing is something that will endanger every single piece of that. It will destabilize all that is great and good in American life. And you know, I just really hope that that does not become a serious possibility.

HH: And then the second thing I have great confidence in is the American military, especially its Navy, in terms of countering the Chinese Community Party and its People’s Liberation Army and Navy, though they outbuild us. I think we’re smarter, better, and more lethal than them, but I also think we’re quagmire a little bit. Do you folks at the Institute spend much time thinking about American military power and how to restructure it?

RS: No. You know, we are an organization that is really focused on domestic policy and battles of ideas. So to the extent we look at the international scene, it is typically at the level of ideology and ideas, and the flow of ideas across borders. But I will tell you personally, as a citizen and as a patriot, I do think about these issues very much. It’s a big question for me. And I think that the domestic side of things that we do work on relates directly to the international side of things. If we’re not educating our young, if we are not fostering a belief in American ideals, these are things that are going to make our country deeply vulnerable to foreign actors that want to divide us and want to defeat us. And also, look, we need to have a prosperous economy that is capable of having the Defense industrial base that we need to win the coalitional wars of the future. I think that if you look at the war that Ukraine is fighting for survival, the wars that Israel is fighting for its survival, we are looking at that next generation of warfare right now. And it’s different from what came before. It’s different from the Gulf War. It’s different from the Cold War. It is fast-moving, and it’s going to require a huge amount of economic and technological innovation to stay ahead. And so those things that seem domestic right now, they really have big, big implications for whether or not our country is going to remain the most powerful, dynamic, great power in the world.

HH: So my exit questions, Reihan, I’m 70. You’re 45. When you’re 70 and you’re talking to the public intellectuals who are 45, do you think we’re going to be in the same position that we are now, the superpower to which China aspires? Or are we going to be a third-rate power with de minimis impact on the world?

RS: If I’m being entirely honest with you, I think the path we’re on right now is a path of relative decline. I believe that we need to renew belief in the American promise. We need to renew belief in our Constitutional order. And fundamentally, Hugh, you and I come from different backgrounds. My parents are immigrants who moved to New York City in the mid-1970s. And when I look at the rising generation, you know, over a quarter of the rising generation, they’re either immigrants or second generation folks. We need them to be bought in, and we need Americans whose ancestors have been in the country since the 17th Century. We need them to be bought in as well. I believe that you and I believe fundamentally, when it comes down to the most important things about governance, when it comes to the fundamental questions about our values, our Constitutional commitments, I believe that you and I actually have a lot in common. I believe there’s probably 80-90% overlap, because even though we look different, even though we might sound different, even though we might have grown up, you know, just kind of having different traditions here and there…

HH: Completely different worlds. Yeah, different worlds. The 60s from the 90s is a different world, yeah.

RS: But fundamentally, but also, look. I grew up in a world where you know, I grew up around World War II veterans. I grew up in a world where people had a memory, they were telling stories about the storming of the beaches at Normandy. They remembered what it looked like when the odds were against us. They remembered what that meant. They had a sense of that fragility. And the people who are younger than us, Hugh, I think my problem is that they’ve lived in a world in which America has been bestriding the world like a colossus, where we’ve taken safety and security for granted. They’ve taken the idea that our ideals are firmly entrenched and that they’re bipartisan. They’ve taken those things for granted. And now, they believe that they can embrace all manner of experiments. They can take that prosperity for granted, then they can embrace different kinds of radicalism, whether that’s on the left or elements of the far right. And what we need to do is recommit people, and we need to tell our story in a new, fresh way. Those of us on the right need to acknowledge that we do need to be more aggressive. We do need to recognize that we can’t just be champions of the status quo. You and I, in some respects, are the ones who have that sense of urgency, because we understand that what we have is incredibly precious and fragile. And I worry that that sense is being lost. And there are a lot of people of your generation and my generation who have a certain ingenuousness. They’re naïve. They don’t get what we’re up against right now. And everything that we do at the Manhattan Institute is about that sense of urgency, and that we need to win the rising generation. We need a diverse coalition that is embracing core Constitutional conservatism, and they’re doing it for reasons that resonate with them, and that are familiar with them, they’re familiar with their life story and their life experience, but that also connects them to the past. I want our past and our future to be linked together, and we have a generation of people that has no sense of the past. They take their inheritance for granted if they even understand it at all. That is a huge failure of our core governing institutions, of our core educational institutions, and it’s a failure that you and I are going to pay for, that our kids and grandkids are paying for right now. And we need to do something about it right now.

HH: That cannot be improved upon, so I’ll end it there. Reihan, I hope you will be a regular visitor to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Sorry it took me so long to extend the invitation. Next time, we can talk about the Looming Tower. But you were right about Hiss, so we’re going to give you a complete pass. And that was wonderfully stated. Reihan, thank you, and I appreciate your time with me today.

RS: Thank you, Hugh. It’s an honor to be with you.

HH: Thank you much.

End of interview.