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Reunion 2025, Part 1: ND Perspectives, Policy Impacts From Campaigns to Capitals

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Episode Topic: Policy Impacts From Campaigns to Capitals
The country’s leaders are governing from the White House and Congress to state capitals.  How are they progressing six months post-inauguration as they do the people’s business? Our experts discuss key legislation, policy direction, implementation, and more.

Featured Speakers:
-Mary Thompson ’85, Managing Director for G100 BoardExcellence, Former Journalist for CNBC and Bloomberg Radio and Television
-Mary Gallagher, Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, Non-resident senior fellow at the John L Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution
-Brian P. McKeon ’85, Former United States Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources
-Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Director, Tocqueville Professor of Political Science, Concurrent Associate Professor of Law, Founding Director of the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government, University of Notre Dame

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/44c4ac.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled ND Perspectives.

Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.

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Introduction and Welcome

1

I know it's gonna be a great day when you give me applause before I've even spoken. Thank you. good morning and welcome to ND Perspectives. I'm Dolly Duffy, the executive director of your Notre Dame Alumni Association, and we are so thrilled that you all got up this morning and came out for this. It won't disappoint. As a matter of fact, I am, I'm a bit of a political junkie myself, having spent a couple of years on the hill after I graduated from Notre Dame quite a while ago. And so I follow it. And when this started coming together, I've been looking forward to it for weeks. as you know, it's one of our signature reunion events and we get to discuss the biggest juiciest meatiest topics and the thought provoking issues of the day, and that's what we'll do. So today we focus on policy impacts from campaigns to capitals. Now, you may have noticed, but 2024 was an election year, and those who were elected to serve the American people at the federal, state and local levels are now implementing their policy agendas. So today, with the help of our experts, and they are really impressive experts, we will focus on the direction the policies and politics are taking us. So now I'm delighted to introduce a fellow alumni, my friend and moderator, Mary Thompson. Mary is a proud member of the class of 1985. Mary has spent 26 years as a broadcast journalist for CNBC in Bloomberg. You may some of you recognize her, certainly her classmates, from her television or radio coverage of major events including the financial crisis, stock market crashes, and Hurricane Katrina. She's an award-winning journalist who we are proud to have as a member of the Notre Dame family. And she brings an incredible body of knowledge'cause she serves as an advisor and moderator for World 50, where she focuses on moderating and developing programs for corporate directors and C-suite executives. We appreciate her lending, her reporting and moderating skills for this incredible conversation. So we have an impressive lineup. We're ready to go. Get your questions ready, Mary, take it away.

Discussion on Recent Political Changes

3

Good morning everyone, and thanks to class of 85. Look at this. Yeah, we're well represented today. it's wonderful to be here. It's always wonderful to be here on this campus and especially when so many of us are celebrating important milestones, me and my colleagues, of course, celebrating 48 years, but of course the rest of you as well. Thanks for joining us. You know, one of the things that I think of whenever I come back to Notre Dame is how fortunate I was to have been educated here and also. To have the opportunity to continue that education with forums like this and all the wonderful online opportunities that Notre Dame continues to offer, the alumni group. So I hope you take advantage of those, but also take advantage of what's going to happen today. As Dolly mentioned, we have a great lineup. we've pulled from our alumni network and our faculty network. And so while I'm going to ask questions again about the impact of policy, for the first 45 minutes, we're gonna leave about 15 to 20 minutes for you to ask questions. And so just to give you an idea, we have Mike set up, on either side. Oh, here we go. on either side of the stage here. So when I conclude, the q and a, I will invite all of you to come up or whoever has a question to come up. And, ask your questions one by one. I just ask that you be mindful of the other people who may wanna ask a question and hand the mic over after you have asked your questions. So get ready, get those questions ready. our group is certainly excited to hear from you and hear what you wanna hear from them. Without further ado, I wanna welcome our panelists, starting with Philip Munoz. Philip is the Tocqueville professor of political science and a concurrent professor of law. He is the founding director of the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government here at Notre Dame, and he is focused on the themes of religious liberty and the American constitution. He's also an author. God and founders, Madison, Washington and Jefferson, and the author of Religious Liberty and the American Founding, please welcome Philip Munoz. Hey, Philip. Second. we pulled from the class of 85 again, my class. Sorry, we can't help it. my, my classmate Brian McCone, is, has spent 32 years in public service. After he left Notre Dame, he received his law degree and worked, as I said, in public service for 32 years. He worked for the Biden and Obama administration's, primarily in foreign policy and defense. And one of his most recent, assignments was as the US Deputy Secretary of State Management. State for management and resources. Please welcome Brian McCone. And finally, we are delighted to welcome Dean Mary Gallagher to today's session. She is the Maryland Keo Dean of the Keo School of Global Affairs, and she's a recent, I guess you could say, addition to the Notre Dame faculty. I think we may have gotten her through the academic portal. I'm not sure if there is such a thing, but she comes to us after 24 years at the University of Michigan. She is of course, a political scientist and her research focuses on Chinese politics and US-China relations. She too, as you would expect, is an author among her, books, authoritarian Legality in China, law Workers and the State and Contagious Capitalism. Globalization and the politics of labor in China. Please welcome Mary Gallagher. Okay, well we're talking about, you know, what's happened over the last five months, something significant, 147 plus executive orders, I think from the Trump administration, Republicans taking control of both chambers. Five laws passed so far, others being considered a big budget bill being considered anyone else as tired as I am, it's been quite a news cycle. As a former journalist, I know that it's been, tough to keep up and it's an interesting time. We are seeing, I think, a shift in how we deal, obviously in with foreign policy. we have seen an abandonment or certainly a downplay of certain initiatives that were primary. Or, in the forefront on climate and DEI, et cetera, we are looking at the president trying to remake an economy that is more focused on manufacturing through use of tariffs. So plenty to discuss with our panel today. You know, I wanna ask, start then with a question to all of you. we'll go down the line because there has been so much happening. What is it that has basically stood out to you so far from the actions from the Trump adminis, the second Trump administration? Philip?

4

Well, thank you. Thank you. welcome back. it's great to have our alumni back. I, in running the, center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government. I, could spend a lot of time with alumni and, you know, you are, you remain the heart and soul of the university, so it's great to have you back and thank you for the tuition. I mean, I don't, and in some ways where to start. yeah, I suppose because, I'm an academic, you know, the administration's actions on DEI, you remember in 2016, Trump in a way distinguished himself from the other 16, Republican candidates by going against political correctness. what we now call wokes or woke ideology. so we knew he was gonna come after it, but the thoroughness or the, aggressiveness at which he's come after DEI, I don't think we've seen that from a Republican, politician maybe since Pete Wilson in California in the nineties, to go back and undo, to rescind the executive order from the Johnson administration. It's one, one, two, four, six on, they call it DEI then, but on affirmative action, to go all the way back to the root. you may like it, you may not, but the aggressiveness and the willingness to, we're gonna go colorblind constitution, and we're gonna say everything else is illegal, has surprised me,

3

Brian.

5

So, thanks for having me. And, this is an amazing space. I've never been in this building. It's

2

beautiful.

5

I'm not surprised at the agenda. They published it in the document called Project 2025, and President Trump did a good job pretending he wasn't aware of it during the campaign. but if you see what they've done and you go look at summaries of the document or read all 900 pages, they're following the playbook. And so I'm not surprised at that one. I'm a little surprised that is the speed. And what I would say is, in some respects, brazen lawlessness with what they're doing. So they took down and dismantled in whole or in part, several government agencies, the US Agency for International Development, consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up after the 2008 Financial Crisis Voice of America, which is broadcast since World War ii, to overseas to tell America's story to the world. Several other small agencies, government you probably never heard of. These are all funded by Congress, created by statute. And as a former congressional lawyer, he, the president, does not have the authority to do what they're doing. He's had executive orders targeting people who used to work for him, who he is mad at executive orders, purporting to restrict the ability of big law firms to engage in their legal practices. Executive order purporting to control or influence how elections are administered, which. It's largely the province of Congress and the states. And so people have reacted and gone to federal courts. And so far he's, the administration is losing, I don't know the number, at least two thirds, maybe three quarters of these cases, either with temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions, or even some cases like the law firm cases. they've already gone to final judgment, summary judgment, very quickly. So it's, as Mary said, I've worked as a democratic appointee, so I don't just take my word for it. Several federal judges, including many appointed by President Trump or Republican president, have found the actions, the administration illegal

6

and Mary. So I'll go to the foreign policy aspects of it since this is mainly what I study, the things that are most remarkable to me and most, I guess, concerning since I'm not sure what the end game is. It's still pretty early. first was, would be the attacks on the traditional alliances, the traditional members of the alliance, nato, of course, and mostly in Europe. I think East Asia has been a little bit more protected because of, concern about arising China. but the, the way in which Europe has felt very clearly, that they're being abandoned by the United States, for various reasons related to funding of NATO and related to, the war in Ukraine. So that's a, that's the first. And then a related is the, the way in which we see the dismantling of the global trade regime with the use of tariffs, overwhelmingly including 10% tariffs right now, I believe on every other country, including countries we have free trade agreements with, and including countries like the UK where we have a new trade. Agreement. So these are two really important. So post-World War II institutions that, I think, you know, probably lots of Americans had issues with or were, had concerns about or worried about the amount of money that the United States pays for, its defense and defense of other countries. so in need of reform, I'm not sure what replaces these institutions. And what is the, what is the broader strategy of the Trump administration to replace these institutions with some other kind of world order that doesn't, put the United States in a position of being isolated or that doesn't put the United States in a position of being weakened? I think it would be impossible for the United States to retract from the world. so how do we make, how do you have a policy that is America first that puts American national interest, primary, but at the same time recognizes that, We are in a world that is still very interconnected and interdependent.

3

Well, someone say, you know, the president is basically using America's might, that being its economic pro, power to put itself first. And what I would like to ask both you and Brian's, given your, focus and experience in foreign policy is the change from leading with human rights when you are dealing in foreign policy to more the deal making and the emphasis on economic benefits for both sides. How does that change America's power, if at all? Because in a lot of ways that is one of our superpowers.

7

I'll go, you go for it.

5

Okay. I'd start by saying, you know, the focus in American foreign policy on democracy and human rights. A lot of people who haven't studied this might trace it to Jimmy Carter, who put a big emphasis on human rights and foreign policy. But it goes back further, at least if Woodrow Wilson saying we were going to war to save democracy, president Roosevelt during the Second World War, talking about being arsenal of democracy. And he and Winston Churchill at the beginning of the war coming up with the document of for freedom. So it's long been a part of our foreign policy that we promoted our values.'cause we believe governments believe, presidents believe that democracies work better for their people. Open discourse, open political systems leads to better governance outcomes and their more reliable allies for the United States. We've never been perfect at this. If we were perfect at it, we would've stopped providing$2 billion a year of military assistance to Egypt a long time ago. so national interests are still always part of the calculus for any president and any Secretary of state, but we've never stopped focusing on democracy and human rights issues until now. There's nothing wrong with deal making, that's what foreign policy is trying to figure out a deal that promotes both the interests of the United States. And the other part. President often seems to see things as a zero sum game that we have to win completely in the other side, needs to surrender completely, and that's not gonna work. So promoting national interests and deal making, there's nothing wrong with that. Inherently, I think it hurts the image of the United States to step away from issues that are part of our founding documents and our values. It hurts our image abroad. The voice that we've had for people who are dissident in authoritarian states and in prison and dis in authoritarian states, taking that away is gonna hurt a lot of people who have relied on the quasi protection of the United States from our promotion of our values.

DEI and Academia

6

Yeah, so I think one of the really interesting things about the Trump administration, what might be different than other Republican administrations, is the ability to articulate a viewpoint that might be attractive to, people across the political spectrum. So, for example, with this, with foreign policy that is more interest oriented and less invested in the rest of the world, and particularly the Trump administration's recent attack on Neoconservatives and this idea of, the United States is mainly leading through war is very attractive to people on the left. Similarly with the Make America Healthy again. you know, this campaign on being skeptical about vaccinations or being skeptical about, corporate, you know, the way in which food processing might hurt people's, health that also very attractive to, people on the left. So I think with the foreign policy, the desire to be less interventionist and to be less invested in particularly regime change, that we're gonna go around the world and we're gonna make other countries democratic, which has not actually worked out that well recently. It worked out pretty well after World War ii. You think about a lot of countries in East Asia, like Japan and South Korea. So I think, the, I think that's an interesting advantage and I think it, it will attract people who in general wanna see, the United States be less interventionists in that way. That's different than not leading with our values and not allowing our values to be enjoyed by people when they arrive here. So I've had a real, you know, visceral reaction against, for example, the recent, attacks on international students and the stop, the, temporary pause in Visa interviews for international students so that the government can look through their social media and see if there is, anti critiques of the Trump administration. I think when people come to the United States, they should be allowed to enjoy freedom of speech in the way that we do. So I think it's more for me about how do we lead with our values, even at the same time that we're gonna take this more sort of national interest, foreign policy forward.

3

Philip, I wanna pick up on something that you were saying this kind of, back to, you know, the push to Quell DEI efforts, et cetera. It's certainly having an impact on your business, that being the business of academia. Has it impacted? And Mary, please join in on this as well. How has it impacted your job and what you see here at the university?

4

Oh, that's a tough, excuse me. That's a tough question. I'm on sabbatical right now, so I'm stepping back from all this, you know, diversity, DEI, Notre Dame, as I'm sure everyone here knows, has, embraced, these ideas. I run a center, so I'd have to write a report on, how my small program contributed to DEI. candidly, I found that very distasteful. I don't, it encourages you to group people by their racial classification or their sexual orientation, and I just don't wanna do that. I, so I found writing that report, I, I just didn't like doing it. I'm hoping that goes away. You know, so I'm kind of old school. I actually believe in the colorblind constitution, and I think most of the mistakes of our country have been a departure from that. I don't know where Notre Dame in particular, or universities in general will be on DEI three or five years from now. I mean, it's, you know, where are we gonna be in 2029? I have no idea. now that could be, thought to be a credit to Trump because every other five year period we knew exactly where we were gonna be. You know, if we had a Republican president, it was just a slightly less, and a Democratic president, it was a lot more. And Trump has really put it, put the idea of DEI in the arena in a piece saying it's illegitimate. I think that's a healthy conversation, to have. But, it's not altogether clear. Look, most people at most universities, including Notre Dame, don't like what he's doing. So we'll see if it sticks.

3

I think there's the other element that it's being used as a cudgel to change higher education.

4

Look, he's, he, higher education. it's hard to know what his end game is with higher education. what does he want Harvard to do? What is success in the Trump administration regarding Harvard or Columbia or universities in general? I don't know. I don't know what their end game is. elite universities have acted like partisan political actors for a number of years, and if you act like a partisan political actor, you're gonna be targeted by partisan political actors. It's not that complicated. So I'm not particularly sympathetic to Harvard. I don't really like what, you know, I don't want the federal government telling private universities who they should hire. I just don't, I don't believe that's the role of federal government. I'm just, but look, you gotta be more responsible. And these universities haven't been responsible.

3

Mary, you said there are actually day-to-day impacts on what's happening, within higher education. Can you just explain to the audience what you're seeing here And how it's impacting your students and faculty members as well?

6

Yeah, so just on, on the DEI, and I haven't been at Notre Dame long enough to know the, how it's, you know, how it was rolled out. And I was at a place like at Michigan where it was, you know, very important and was heavily criticized recently and has been completely un, un unraveled and dismantled. the way I think about it is, in terms of how we hire faculty, for example, is that it's not about choosing people based on their descriptive representation on the group that they belong to, or groups, but rather that we make the pool as competitive and as large as possible. And that does have something to do with being more inclusive in terms of making sure that the way in which we advertise for the job that we, everybody knows about it, that we. Call our networks and get people to apply for it. And I think that can often help people who traditionally have been underrepresented in academia, including women, including people of color. But that's different than a lot of what the DEI was doing at universities. And I think, there was certainly a, a sense of overreach and a sense of, it becoming too important to the hiring, and admissions, the, and I think universities are, even before these attacks were already dealing with that for sure. the others, so just to be candid about the impact at Notre Dame and the impact at the school, at the Keo School of Global Affairs is that so far Notre Dame has lost about$31 million. In federal grants, 21 million of those give or take, have been at the Keo School of Global Affairs. So we bore the brunt of the cuts.

5

but not because of DEI,

6

but not because of DEI. well, no, not because of sometimes like things would get caught because, you know, we have something that was called transnational and it got flagged by AI as being, there's lot, we all have funny examples to talk about regarding how AI made these executive orders. very hard to understand sometimes there was one about molecular orientations that got flagged in biology because it had orientation in it. No. So we were hard hit, two thirds of the funding, at Notre Dame coming, being, terminated at the school was mainly because of U-S-A-I-D and because of Department of State grants. That went to global development, which is one of our big focuses. So poverty, education, public health, reducing gang violence. So things that I would've argued all fit in with the US foreign policy that makes us safer and more prosperous. And, but because the attack on, foreign aid was so overwhelming, it, you know, it just completely decimated, what we were doing. It's unclear to me what that means. I don't think it means that the State Department is not gonna do humanitarian aid and foreign assistance anymore, but there's been a huge disruption and we're now in a kind of holding pattern as we try to figure out what is the new state department as it goes through its own reorg. And I'm sure Brian knows more than about that than I do. What does that mean for what's gonna happen in the future for foreign aid and how do we. Get back to doing those things. Yeah. I'll

Impact on Research and Economy

5

just say quickly on this, they'll, they will be doing some humanitarian aid and foreign assistance. They'll be doing a lot less because they fired a lot of the experts at a ID who are doing it. But they've also broken trust with all the partners overseas in the foreign governments and implementing partners in US NGOs by what they've done. So people move on. They have to, they've attacked essentially an entire sector, in the United States and the assistance world with NGOs and contractors who did a lot of the work overseas. And so you can't just rebuild it. People have to go get other jobs. They're not gonna wait.

3

So just in keeping with the theme of academia, we are seeing cutoffs to research across the board, not necessarily in, in whatever is considered some woke policies. what do you, how do you see this impacting not only academia but the US economy? A whole, anyone wanna jump in on that one?

5

I'm happy to start, but I've been talking too much. the federal funding, the universities obviously benefits the universities, but it wasn't really the university's idea to start this partnership. It started under FDR at the end of the Second World War, to promote basic research, which companies generally don't do. They do applied research, and so the federal government can take risk. And so it's a public-private partnership where the government is asking universities to do basic research in life, sciences, medical fields, ai, what have you. And it's the heart of our innovation economy. So it just read an op-ed. It's no secret that the Silicon Valley type companies are in Northern California and Massachusetts, where our leading universities are. So he's just, the administration in my view, is shooting itself in the foot with this, and I don't really, as Philip said, what is the goal and what is the point for our economy? It obviously hurts universities, but I don't really understand the strategy.

6

Yeah. So, the economy and on, universities with students, we also see more recently in the news attacks on, how many international students universities have. So, and this was a focus this week at Harvard. so international students at American universities. Right now there's a, about a million, I think international, slightly over a million international students that come, you know, to Ivy leagues, to, to big publics, to places like Notre Dame. and they are a hugely important part of the local economy. and if you look at state by state, it's one of the main service exports. It's counted as a service export because they come here, pay tuition, and then also live, you know, by cars and go to restaurants and all that. So it will have a, if there are, is this pause, and next year we see a big drop in the number of international students who get visas. we'll see the impact, you know, in South Bend, in Ann Arbor in Madison, Wisconsin. We'll see the, those impacts again. what's the long-term strategy? I don't know. I think this has been very important to science and technology. the top groups of students still in the United States, China, India. Well now India is actually larger than China. Just in the last couple of years, South Korea, we're attracting a lot of students into STEM from these places. I think there is, perhaps a need to have a. Discussion about should there be, given that universities up until now have been largely tax exempt, should there be a limit on the proportion of international students? Right. Most state universities already have limits for, you need to have certain number of students from that state. should we also be thinking about, restrictions on the number of international students? Maybe that's a good debate to have and think about, you know, Harvard right now is 27% of its student body is international. That's pretty high. I don't know, is that too high? Is that too low? I don't, I think that would be helpful and it would be much more constructive than what I see now, which are very sort of arbitrary and capricious decisions that send a message to the rest of the world, the smartest people around the world that we don't want you here.

4

How, maybe just a small point on that. I agree with everything that Brian and Mary said. the funding. So the federal government doesn't just fund the hard sciences, the funds. The humanities and social sciences, and there's a real loss, in the absence of funding there. But there has been, I think, a cost or, Republicans would see a cost, conservatives would see a cost in that. it provided, sufficient money, that candidly to fund things that parents and students were not particularly interested in. there's no, if you're a business, you have customers, who are our customers, and I hate it when we talk about students, that's customers. But when the federal government will fund your research and you don't have to worry about parents or students being interested, that allowed, I think that allowed for a certain, ideological creep. You could always get money from the NEH or NEA, that and no one's really paying attention to that. And I think part of the. ideological imbalance in our universities and the ideological imbalance is really in the humanities and social sciences and not so much the hard sciences is because, there was money available to fund things that, you know, most Americans weren't that interested in. And I think that's actually part of the problem and maybe that's what the administration is targeting. I mean, I'm worried as you know, I'm on the human humanistic side of the social sciences. I'm sort of worried that the real scientists are gonna say, Hey, we're suffering because of what you guys are doing. And they're not wrong on that.

3

Could I just, I have a question.'cause I think isn't part, if you are only funding things that the majority of people are interested in, don't you miss something significant? I mean, part of academic exploration is looking to places that you've never looked before. A

4

hundred percent. A hundred percent agree. but there's gotta be a responsibility. What's being funded is actually in the public interest. You know, the I'D invite people to, I mean, some of, you'll remember this was a big issue when, bill Bennett became, an education secretary and the NEA funded a project where, an artistic project that was, crucifix dipped in Europe as art. So yes, we wanna fund things that, you know, are innovative or interesting, but not anti-American and anti-religious. And that's what I mean by responsibility. I don't think academics have always been as responsible, with the generosity of the American people. And you do that long enough and the American people are gonna get upset.

3

I have a question to follow up on something Mary said is that if the US is saying it's no longer open to the best and the brightest, who benefits from this? You're a China expert. Does China benefit from this?

6

I joke right now that Xi Jinping is sitting back eating a lot of popcorn because he's just watching what's going on in the United States. And I think China does tend to, in their own media, which is state controlled, they play up, the partisanship, the polarization. They talk about, you know, recently, in this past week, the attacks on Chinese students here, something that they'll benefit from. I think in if you, if we're talking about, say, student flows, one of the interesting things that will happen with the restrictions now is that the countries that will benefit most will be other English speaking countries around the world where these flows are now. So, the UK is benefiting a lot from the what's going on in the United States with China, Canada, Australia are also benefiting. I think the, larger problem of the US sort of retracting inward. My fear in terms of, China is that. the US is a hugely important globe. It's, it is the most important economy in the world. And, as it becomes more, zero sum in terms of how it thinks about trade, other countries like your other places like the European Union, don't have that many other places to look, right? So in, in a sense, what I see now is, Europe is being driven into the arms of China. and that is of huge concern.'cause I don't think necessarily with the US retracting whether or not the, if isolationism is really where the United States goes, we will be isolated.

3

Philip, I wanna ask you quickly, the administration has been challenging a number of legal precedents that, linked to the power checking the power of the executive branch. What concerns you about the potential shifts here could happen?

Independent Agencies and AI's Role in Modern Warfare

4

Well, yeah, the Trump administration, as everyone here knows, has been very aggressive in its understanding of executive power. I mean, there's a precedent that, looks like the Supreme Court's gonna overturn called, I mean, this is really to get, this is like going to class here. This is to get in the weeds, called Humphrey's executor. It's, it's, it's the way that independent agencies have been protected, right? So think of all the alphabet, agencies, the National Labors Relations Board, et cetera. I mean, there's hundreds of them. we call them independent agencies. And who are they independent of? Technically they're in the executive branch, but they're supposed to be independent of politics. This is how we get expert rule. those agencies don't sit so easily within the constitution. In the Constitution, there's legislative power, which Congress has. There's executive power that the president has. There's judicial power. There's not independent power. This goes all the way back to the 1920s and 1930s especially of a new deal. And, and then was turbocharged during the, great society in the sixties. the idea of experts and the Trump administration, and so much to my surprise is really going after the idea that there should be independent agencies. the biggest or most important independent agency is the Fed. Seems like the Supreme Court is gonna say Don't touch the Fed, but the other independent agencies must be subject to presidential control. to say an agency is independent of the president also means it's independent of the American people.'cause we can vote for the president, but we don't get to vote for the head of these independent agencies. This is a big question in constitutional law is another example of how Trump has been, not Trump himself, but Trump's administration has been very aggressive to roll back, a sort of progressive notion of constitutionalism expert role. Expert rule and, to go after the administrative state. And I think the Supreme Court's going to actually, this I think is gonna be a win. I think you're gonna have a six three vote or five four vote saying the Fed is special. Roberts has made clear that, but these other independent agencies have to be subject to presidential control.

5

So just a quick finer point on it. Most of these agencies are commissions, which by statute have Republican and Democratic appointees that go through the Senate. So that's kind of the check. Initially, Trump has fired the Democrats on a lot of these commissions. and you're right, the Supreme Court has hinged, it's probably gonna overrule Humphrey's executor and have this carve out for the Federal Reserve, which honestly, I don't understand what the principled argument would be. There is no principled argument there. no, it's definitely not. I'll stop. I'll'cause I'll say something. Well.

3

So, just as a heads up to the audience, we just have a, two minutes left in our q and a. So if you do have a question and wanna start lining up, please do, because we wanna hear from you. But I'm going to end with a question that we were talking, about before we came on stage, all the panelists, and that's about AI and how it is impacting, you know, your world as you know it. So, I'd love to get, you know, thoughts from each and every one of you and how the administration's, embrace of AI as I think a leading tool in trade, et cetera. how this is going to benefit us and protect us, or possibly how to hurt us. whatever side you're on or whatever view you have, anyone wanna jump in and. Start,

6

I can start with the, just on the national security and the importance of ai. I mean, it's almost as if we're in, like the beginning of the discovery of the use of nuclear weapons, right? and there's a competition right now mainly right between the United States and China on dominance and ai. The United States still leads, China's catching up quickly. A lot of what China has done has been through, access to technology, from the United States or from countries like Taiwan, places like Taiwan, countries like Taiwan, whatever you think Taiwan is. And, and you know, so, more recently in the press deep seat, this was a Chinese AI that seemed to not need as much energy and not need as, as much, capital. So the competition, I think is making it such that we can't ignore ai. We can't, we have to compete like, like we would have to compete in an arms race. But the fact that China and the United States are decoupling so quickly, it also means that there's not a lot of debate and discussion about how do we manage the use of ai, through some sort of, arms accord, right? That we just say there are certain things that, you know, AI is not gonna be allowed to do, at the, you know, so that's a big issue and I think that's an important issue to keep, front and center. The AI is here, it is a competitive race with China, and we can't, take our foot off the gas, but how do we think about regulating it? That's a national security issue. And then there's the issues that, like Phil and I deal with every day, which is what do we do in the classroom? So I was saying in the back room, you know, we're going back to Blue Books and oral exams, but at the same time, we need to understand that our students are gonna be using AI and we need to deal with it.

4

So I'm told I can't assign papers anymore. Because, and or take home tests. So for years I've been, in my class in American political thought. the midterm question is something like, explain the core issues of the Lincoln Douglas debates. And I give take, I give the kids take home tests. So they have, I actually let them vote on it. They can have three hours or 24 hours and they go home and they, I tell them, don't use the internet. And I think Notre Dame students have been pretty good on that. but I'm just told you can't do that anymore. that the rising first year students, they're just, they just use ai. And AI is very good. And so I, I'm not sure what you do if you can't assign a paper or, I mean, you, you use blue books, you have in-class exams. but it's gonna be very hard for the intro classes of 50 to 75 students if you can't use, assign a paper. I, how are we gonna teach our kids how to write and really how to think. So I'm worried we'll figure out something to do. But, the college experience that you had, and the assignment, the papers that you copied from your friends, you don't need your friends anymore.

3

Brian, I'll let you hit the last word on this one.

5

I don't remember any Take home exams. That must be a new thing. it's gonna change the face of warfare. You know, we think about it, when I was in the Pentagon for two and a half years at the end of the Obama administration, and we were starting to wrestle with something called autonomous lethal weapons. And how you would ensure if we had autonomous weapons, there were still humans making the decisions. It's 10 times more complicated now, I suspect in trying to sort that out. And AI is still, in many respects, pretty nascent. and it has a lot of imperfections, but people are gonna have to get their arms around how they deal with it, because it's coming and it's gonna change the way that we undertake military activities.

3

All right. That's great. Thank you. And so now we wanna turn to the q and a from the audience, portion of this. One thing I just wanna note, I wanna repeat that if you do have a question, if you just ask one and let the people behind you have their chance as well. If you would start with stating your name and your class, it would also be helpful. So I am going to start to my right.

Audience Q&A

8

Thank you. my name is Danny Richter. I'm in the, from the class of oh five, and I wanted to bring, America the dollar as the world's reserve currency into the discussion, because I think that has some interesting tie-ins with our geopolitical heft and what we might be losing. I think it ties in with the reconciliation bill and what's possible. So more of you could. the talk has been that we are at risk of losing that exorbitant privilege. And so just for the panel to play out a little bit about what do we gain by that? What do we risk losing, if we lose that exorbitant privilege? Thank you.

3

I'm gonna point to Brian on this one. And then anyone else who wants to jump in, because we were talking not only about that, the do, dollar, again, at least from the administration, they wanna weaken the dollar, but also how crypto might play in them the future. So Brian, I'm gonna start with you and then I see Mary's eyes light up, so jump in.

5

Yes. From a foreign policy and national security perspective, not just the economic side of it and trade, but we have used our strength as the dollar, as the international currency as a foreign policy tool to impose sanctions against foreign countries, whose behavior we didn't like. And they've been used extensively against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine through the Department of Treasury. Using the same authority the president's been using for the tariffs, of 1977 law called the International Economic Emergency Economic Powers Act. And so if we lose the, that strength of the dollar, our ability to influence country's behavior with financial sanctions, we will almost certainly be weakened.

6

So, yeah. also not my area of expertise, but just in regards to US China competition, the weakening of the dollar, one of the reasons why the Trump administration wants the dollar to be weakened with this idea of a Mar-a-Lago Accord and some sort of agreement with, friendly trading countries, assuming they assume that they say friendly, is that, weakening the dollar will allow more manufacturing to come back into the United States. I think that when we think about manufacturing coming back into the United States, I think that is absolutely should be a priority of any administration. But to think very clearly about what type of industry, what is actually, what is our labor force support would support, what is the fast, with ai, with automation becoming, more and more dominant in many industries, will bringing manufacturing back actually help with issues related to employment and related to industrial decline and things like the fentanyl crisis in parts of the country. and I don't think it's clear, it's not clear to me that weakening the dollar will, really drive a lot of manufacturing back into the United States unless we use industrial policy as well. So it's interesting. This is a longer, so one of the things that I think I'm really struck by right now is that Xi Jinping, the general Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, the leader of China. Donald Trump and, Joe Biden were all in, stuck in a kind of 1950s mode of we need to have heavy industry in manufacturing. And that's true to some extent. it's true for supply chain resilience. We all saw that during COVID. It's true for military conflict. We all, there are ways in which our supply chains are not, stable and secure, because of globalization. At the same time, I'm not convinced that weakening the currency will bring, will drive manufacturing back for a lot of reasons. And I think we ignore, the things that Brian is talking about, the en enormous privilege that, we have with the dollar being the dominant currency.

3

I think we're gonna do a little bit more of a quick fire here so we can help get to the questions. right over here again, name and class please.

9

good day. Paul Valeri, class of 1970. The top and the, salient point of, of my question is why the heck is Notre Dame not step forward with more strength and in alliance with the Harvards of the world, and, to call out the fact that, Congress is cowardly at this point. The Republican Congressman, we have some who might be even sitting here. We have one from one from our class. I say this, it's something really distinctive about my era. Okay? We were here subject to the draft. Unlike the vast majority of those sitting here. Because of that, we had massive ROTC. We understood and perfectly understand better than most. It's certainly better than Trump and better than Republican Congress, how we stand for the defense and protection of the Constitution over everything else. So you started with without array of executive orders, most of which is sheer garbage, sheer total garbage. Okay? And if Congress would only step forward and start doing their job. As to con control, the balance of power. And you mentioned, sir, about certain things there, administratively that should be adjusted and independent. Yes. That's with criteria and objective sense. Okay. Not a runaway with a chainsaw. So the, how would that chainsaw happen? All right. I'm with can in terms of OBO sum.

2

Okay.

9

I'm just right now. look. Just please address that. All right. I started it off. Why are we not doing more? Okay. The law school was fricking complicit. Un under the Federalist Society, bringing it you. Why are we not doing more okay and align ourselves and why are we not realizing what Congress needs to be doing? That is correctable. Okay. We don't have to wait.

3

I'm sorry. I just wanted to ask, I asked people to be concise. You know, I

9

had to get her off my chest.

3

I know.

4

The short answer is, is Congress hasn't, has really abdicated its lawmaking responsibility. And I mean, that's a bipartisan issue. you know, and I think, it would be, as Brian alluded to, Congress creates agencies Congress. If Congress thinks they're no longer needed, they should shut them down. it's con Congressional inaction led Obama to do daca. Congressional inaction led Biden to do student loans. Congressional inaction is leading Trump to do all sorts of things. So, we have a dysfunctional Congress. it's a real problem. It's true. What Notre Dame is doing, v vis-a-vis Harvard. I expect, I certainly wouldn't know and, that I just, that might be

3

something the administration, you'd have to ask the should address as opposed to asking, the professors. but

5

not everything's gonna be in the public either. There was some letter that four or 500 university presidents have signed, in the last month. I can't remember what it was focused on, but it was offensively defensive universities and academic freedom. I don't think it was linked to Harvard. You may know.

6

Yeah. That was the letter, constructive engagement I think was, and it, and you know, it was one of them that, have the assigned. I also have to say, and this is, I'm, I mean, I'm speaking more as my own personal opinion. I've seen it a little bit at Notre Dame, and I think this is broadly the case of why it's not just, most universities right now are not sticking their neck out. Harvard is sticking. Its next out because it was getting cut off. I mean, so it was directly targeted. recently in the New York Times, Columbia was described by somebody who's very sympathetic to the Trump administration that Columbia is playing dead. And I thought, that's exactly right. That's what Columbia's doing right now. I think it's very difficult right now for universities collectively to do something when public trust in universities is quite low. there's no election coming up in terms of, you know, making a big statement. And universities are standing up through the courts. Notre Dame is a party to some of the lawsuits around the loss of federal funding. Notre Dame is not, accepting the cut in, FNA indirect costs on research grants, which the Trump administration has tried to cut to 15%. So we haven't accepted that. and I think we are trying to advocate for our students very strongly, particularly our international students. But there is a danger right now, I think, and many universities that have been targeted, have seen it happen, is that. Sticking your neck out just means that you're cut off. and so working with universities, working with A U, which we're a member of the American Association of Universities, working through our, Congress people is, is what a lot of universities is doing, and I think Notre Dame is doing it pretty well. And it's a very difficult situation. It's unprecedented. Thank you.

10

hi. Indie Tolkien, class of 2020. Thank you to this panel for your time and sharing your thoughts today. I kind of wanted to ask about the third branch of government, the federal court system. lately we've been seeing a lot of frustration from the current administration in implementing their campaign promises in Project 2025 when there's nationwide injunctions from lower courts. And then, you know, there'll be a rhetoric about how these are unelected judges and they'll appeal up to the Supreme Court. Who are also by design unelected judges. and you know, now in the big beautiful Bill, there's a clause that I think Chesky found about how, courts aren't gonna be able to hold people, government officials in contempt of court using taxpayer dollars unless, basically like bails were posted at the start of the lawsuit, which is not a common practice in constitutional challenges. So can you talk about the merits of the judiciary, being unelected as, more of an insulated check within the third branch of government on our, like directly elected branches of government?

4

I mean, I can take that. I mean, this is an answer. I'm sure almost everyone here could articulate themselves. Look, the federal judiciary is supposed to uphold the constitution and, you know, that's their role and that's what they, that's what they should do and that's why they're unelected. The, the idea is, that we, the people in our most sovereign capacity legislated the Constitution, that is our sovereign will until we change it. And the judiciary is there to uphold the constitution, temporary injunctions in whether one judge, you know, in, in one small area can, stop a president from acting. I mean, that, that's not in the constitution. So judicial rule that could be changed. people were complaining about it during the Biden administration when judges were stopping what Biden was gonna do. I think we'll probably get some sort of change what that change is. we'll find out. it could be that a judges, if they, do a temporary injunction, it just applies to the parties at hand, not nationwide. but yeah, we'll see. I, it's hard to know, but it's not a constitutional rule and it can be reigned in.

11

Morning, thank you for your presentation. My name is John Holsinger from the class of 1969. Paul seemed to, express some of what I was going to express and ask, and you seem to have answered some of my things, but I'd like to preface it by saying, I listened to Father Do's inaugural address from last, September, I believe it was before the change of administration, and he talked about bridge building. He talked about Christian value, and he talked about the university and us standing up for those values. And it seems to me that some of what you've been talking about today, about the administration's actions, particularly with immigrants and people with visas canceling them and whatnot, it, it seems to me that there is something that we as Notre Dame grads and the university itself can do to stand up. As bridge builders and do something to help the current situation. Now, you may well have already answered that by saying you can't ask, you can't, respond on behalf of the university and the board. but the question is, what could we all the university, and I'd like to see the university take a more public stance on some of this, but what could we all do? Thank you.

6

So I was asked to give, a synopsis. I was in New York last week to a group, and a on a board, not a academic group, about what's going on and why, and this question, which is asked a lot, and it's asked by faculty, it's asked by students, why aren't universities doing more? And one thing I just wanted to explain to people who are outside of universities is that. What's so un the attacks on universities right now is very unprecedented. I don't think we really understand why, because it is very detrimental to one of the United States' most important soft power, most important kind of com competitive edge. But the levers right now that the administration has are very immense. And the uncertainty, coupled with the uncertainty that we see in, say, the markets or that we see with name, image, and likeness of athletics, there's so much uncertainty. I think universities are trying to figure out what is the best strategy, this idea of Columbia basically rolling over and playing dead like a possum. Like my dog finds possums in the yards. I know exactly what Columbia is doing. It is waiting for a better time to do something. And I think that is, you know, I think it's a good question. I don't really have the best answer, but I think it's important to understand the uncertainty and the risks to the universities right now is incredibly high.

7

Luci of 85. so there's a common saying that good policy makes bad politics, and bad, I guess, and good politics makes bad policy. you've asked the, you a number of times, Brian, you guys said you're not sure what the end state, the end goal of a certain policy is. Do you think it's just effective politics is the goal?

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It's interesting. look,

4

the universities are a easy target, right? the public confidence in universities has plummeted. oh gosh, I had these statistics on my head. it's something like, 68% of the people think, American universities are going in the wrong direction. the percentage of, American people that said universities, these are Gallup polls. last year, percentage of American people that said universities, are not looking out for the interest of the country is around 50%. Among Republicans, it's way above 50%. And so one of the problems the universities had is they're viewed, rightly or wrongly, they're viewed by conservatives as partisan political actors. Right? And that's a real, that's a real problem when you have a partisan president. now how universities solve that problem? I don't know. I think those are just the facts. And so I think you're right that, look, not a lot of Americans are sympathetic with Harvard. It's a university that prides itself on excluding 95% of the people who go there, that we're a democratic country. You say, we're so great because we exclude all of you. All of you are not gonna be particularly

5

sympathetic with you. I just very quickly talk about something we haven't talked about that the administration targeted has targeted the National Weather Service and the tariffs are impacting farmers. your local weather station does not have satellite coverage. They get that from the federal government. And so tornadoes, hurricanes, farmers, they're mostly in states that voted for President Trump. So it's a real head scratcher that he's weakening protections for people who voted for him. Now, you'd like the president to be a president for all Americans, but you'd think he would at least be president for and pay attention to the interests and needs of the states that voted for him. But I don't see that as good politics, but they're doing it.

3

So unfortunately we are running out of time. We have time for one last question. So, because I've been going back and forth, I apologize, to the people who had lined up. but one note before we go, we do invite all of you back, to a reception, where you can speak to the panelists after this is concluded. But please, last question. Sorry

13

I'm not very tall, so hopefully you can hear me. I'm Tina Noona. I'm the class of 2010. I'm actually registered as an independent voter.'cause I've always said, depending on the person who's running, I won't necessarily vote based on party alone. not a fan of a lot of what's happened. A lot of it goes directly against my personal values, but I think what I'm struggling with right now is I know a lot of people, I mean, over 50% of our country obviously voted for Trump. So there's a lot of good people I know that went in that di a lot of people I know that voted in that direction that I think actually have the same core values. but I'm struggling to figure out how do I make a difference, like as a private citizen and then just thinking larger about. Hey, this is a huge population of alumni that also has my values. So just curious as to what you found as like, how do you feel like you can make the most positive difference, either as a collective group or as a private citizen right now?

4

You know, I, there's a class I teach here at Notre Dame. It's called, it's as a terrible title. It's called Constitutional Government and Public Policy. and what we do in that class is change cut. I know I should change the title. we take every hot button in political issue. So I start with free speech. I actually start with pornography.'cause I tell the students, let's start with something, you know, and the question. And so, pornography, abortion, gay marriage, income inequality, immigration, and, slavery at the founding. And the goal of that class is to get my progressive students to read conservative arguments and my conservative students to read progressive arguments. And to have them argue it out. It's not a bipartisan class. I'm not trying to find the middle position. No, I want my conservative students to hear, these are the most thoughtful arguments on positions you disagree with and vice versa. And I, and unintended consequence of that class is the conservative students don't become progressive and the progressive students don't become conservative, but they co become more moderate.'cause they learn that, oh, actually there are reasonable arguments in favor of affirmative action. Or there's reasonable arguments, for restricting immigration. They might not agree with them, but the, I think too much, the more we can reduce demonization of those we disagree with and try to understand where they're coming from, and I can do this in this one class'cause I control the syllabus. it's been, it's a terrific to see that actually the friendships. Come about here. Here's a difference now that I'm sure different for current students, their friendships are on ideological lines. I think that's terrible. It's just absolutely terrible. And to see friendships, a conservative student and a liberal student realizing that they wanna mix it up and talk, and a friendship come out of that, I think is a great win.

5

So what I take quickly is as a citizen, you have a voice and a vote, and members of Congress face reelection every two years. And I work for a member of the US Senate for 20 years. And I can tell you who's a lot more focused on constituent interests the last two years of this term. and it was Joe Biden by the way. and so there are a lot of members of Congress. Who are in gerrymandered districts and they're gonna get reelected, whatever happens. So they may not listen to you. But if you live in a swing district or a district that, is fairly close, your voice and the voice of other, of your friends and family is gonna matter. They are going to listen. So pick a cause, pick an organization to support and either donate or donate your time. It's the most important obligation we all have to be part of this country as this citizen.

6

Well, I'm new to Notre Dame, so, but I, you know, I came from a university that is in a town that people joke as the People's Republic of Ann Arbor.

2

So,

6

not a particularly, not a place that, conservative students felt very open about, their views. And in fact, once teaching on healthcare, I had a student come at the end of class and say. I'm a conservative. Like he had to whisper it.

2

Yeah.

6

and I thought that was really interesting that he didn't feel comfortable talking about his views in front of his peers. And I think that is something that Notre Dame actually does a lot better. It probably is not perfect, but it does it a lot better than a lot of universities. It might be one of the reasons why Notre Dame kind of stands apart and there's a perception it's not doing enough. I think it's doing a lot, partly because I think it does have this identity partly based on its Catholicism and partly based on the fact that we've maintained it seems like a certain amount of diversity within, the student body and within the faculty. That's something really important to, to preserve. And as Notre Dame alum, I think you can bring that forward to your groups and to your local communities. How do you talk to people who you disagree with and don't demonize them? Like Phil said,

3

civil conversations. everyone, again, we hope we, you join us for the reception afterwards and please join me. In thanking Philip Brian,

1

and please join me in thanking Mary Thompson and also wishing her a very happy birthday. Mary, for a split second, I thought that I might lead a song of happy birthday, but I haven't had a cocktail yet, so I can't do it. That's

12

the safe space since everyone knows my age, right? So it's, I'm not gonna lie to anyone here. Yeah. thank you.