In observance of Independence Day, the Hoover Daily Report will not publish on July 3 and will return on Monday, July 6, 2026.
Today, Nobel laureate María Corina Machado speaks to a Hoover audience about the struggle for liberty in Venezuela; Joshua Rauh and Gregory Kearney consider how principles articulated by James Madison offer lessons for American governance and fiscal responsibility today; Michael Auslin explains why John Adams initially thought today, July 2, would hold the place in American history now occupied by the Fourth of July; and Scott Atlas makes the case for abolishing the National Institutes of Health to improve the functioning of American science.
Nobel laureate María Corina Machado, joining a panel of fellow champions of freedom who have confronted tyranny in their own countries, told a Hoover Institution audience on June 17 that the courage and resilience of the Venezuelan people remain the driving force behind Venezuela’s fight for liberty. The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who helped lead Venezuela’s Unitary Platform coalition to what is widely believed to be a decisive victory in her country’s 2024 elections, told attendees in Hoover’s Hauck Auditorium that her compatriots continue to make sacrifices to seek basic political freedom. “The title of this event, ‘Choosing Freedom,’ is no mere abstraction for Venezuela’s democratic movement,” Machado said. “It is a daily act of courage by millions of people who refuse to surrender their humanity to tyranny.” The event was chaired by renowned historian and Hoover Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin, and featured Research Fellows Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Abbas Milani, as well as North Korean defector and celebrated journalist Joo Seong-ha.
Can James Madison still help solve America’s fiscal crisis? As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, Senior Fellow Joshua D. Rauh and Senior Research Analyst Gregory Kearney argue that the Founding Father’s views on property rights, public debt, and limited government offer a framework for confronting today’s mounting fiscal challenges. They contend that Madison would have rejected modern wealth taxes as violations of private property while insisting that governments honor legitimate obligations without imposing endless burdens on future generations.
Drawing on Madison’s writings and his role in resolving Revolutionary War pension debts, the authors explore how his principles might apply to today’s unfunded liabilities, including Social Security, Medicare, and public pensions. In the place of expanding taxes and entitlements, they argue, Madison’s emphasis on prudence, finite obligations, and intergenerational responsibility offers enduring lessons for preserving both fiscal stability and constitutional government.
In a post at his ThePatowmack Packet Substack, Distinguished Research Fellow Michael Auslin writes, “Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago today, the Continental Congress voted to adopt Richard Henry Lee’s resolution of June 7 that . . . ‘these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.’” Auslin further notes that John Adams thought today, July 2, would be the great American holiday for the ages. He quotes from a letter Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, saying that July 2 “ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” Auslin’s post contains more excellent excerpts from Adams’s reflections on “the Chain of Causes and Effects” culminating in the resolution for American independence, which are well worth reading today or this weekend.
In an op-ed at The Washington Post, Senior Fellow Scott Atlas echoes Milton Friedman in arguing that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “should be abolished.” While the NIH has funded some valuable scientific research, Atlas says, “it’s also a governmental monopoly with a roughly $48 billion budget subject to political influence, fiscal abuse and suppression of scientific dissent—one that has diverted billions from actual science to academic operations, racial set-asides and ideological mandates.” Atlas reviews various examples where politicians of both major parties have steered research funding and agendas toward various preferred areas. “Abolishing the NIH would not create a funding vacuum,” Atlas maintains, noting that the private sector already “funds 78 percent of US biomedical research and development.” What’s more, Atlas says, much of the private investment flowing into artificial intelligence is already “funding the overwhelming majority of innovative medical devices and building the AI revolution in biomedicine.” Atlas concludes that doing away with the NIH would not represent a cut to science but rather “is a case for science itself.”
This interview for the Hoover site features Senior Fellow Drew Endy and his scientific colleagues Kate Adamala, Jan Jedryszek, and Chris Raggio in a discussion about SpudCell (a simple synthetic cell capable of growing and dividing), synthetic cell engineering, and building open foundations for the future of bioengineering. The researchers are all cofounders of Biotic, “a new public benefit charity whose mission is to make real the foundations underlying 21st-century bioengineering on a transparent, responsible, and available-to-all basis.” Endy explains that his work in the Bio-Strategies and Leadership initiative at Hoover has shown “that Western governments are still working toward fully engaging with and advancing biology as a strategic domain.” But the new Biotic initiative, “as an independent, multilateral, and public benefit platform, can move with agility, scale, and professionalism, in a way that strengthens and complements both public and private efforts.”
On July 7, 2015, the Hoover Institution conducted a ceremonial groundbreaking on a new 50,000-square-foot building adjacent to Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus, today known as the Traitel Building after its primary and generous benefactors, David and Joan Traitel.
