Niall Ferguson in discussion with UATX undergraduates Emerson Lau, Faith Brown, and Merrick Meardon.
Sir Niall Ferguson is a co-founder of UATX. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. Niall is the author of sixteen books, including Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Ross Prize.
Recorded: April 26, 2026 at UATX.
00:00 — Preview
00:36 — Why should Americans care about Iran?
05:14 — Operation Epic Fury
08:25 — Niall's Iran predictions
10:54 — The return of political violence
14:37 — Why have there been so many assassination attempts on President Trump?
16:37 — The tradition of American populism
18:19 — Are we Rome?
20:04 — The corruption of the elites
21:52 — What would it mean to win the Iran War?
27:58 — Inconsistent messaging
30:09 — TDS & sycophants
31:29 — China, Russia, & "Little Rocket Man"
36:12 — Disillusionment, hypocrisy, & antisemitism
39:14 — The destruction of William F. Buckley's life's work
40:53 — Niall's criticisms of President Trump's messaging
43:06 — Arguing about war (online)
43:55 — Q&A: Is war inevitable?
48:01 — Q&A: Cold War II
49:43 — Q&A: Polarization & radicalization in the UK
51:07 — Q&A: Israel's upcoming elections
53:20 — Q&A: Will the U.S. Constitution fail?
55:53 — Q&A: The U.S. government's relationship with Anthropic
59:07 — Q&A: "If you want peace, prepare for war"
Join Us Tonight at UATX
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik joins UATX President Carlos Carvalho for a conversation on “Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities.” Tonight (May 11), from 5-7 PM. RSVP here.
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