On November 12, 2024, American Enterprise Institute President Robert Doar awarded Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell the Irving Kristol Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Institute. Watch Doar’s remarks, Leader McConnell’s acceptance speech, and their fireside chat about his career and legacy.

McConnell’s conservative vision has been extraordinarily successful, but traditional conservatism will be challenged by populism throughout President Donald Trump’s second term. Writing in the Financial Times, AEI Economic Policy Director Michael R. Strain analyzes the policy issues that will define the battle for the future of the American right.

One of the most important of these divides is on tariffs. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, former senator and AEI scholar Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux explain why imposing across-the-board tariffs, as Trump proposed on the campaign trail, would undermine the rest of his pro-growth economic agenda.

Trump will also need to square his sweeping foreign policy rhetoric with the hard realities of the challenges to American security and global stability. AEI Foreign and Defense Policy Director Kori Schake argues that Trump has an opportunity to address key Biden administration failures by reestablishing deterrence and raising defense spending.

While Republicans secured the presidency and both houses of Congress, the 2024 election, like most 21st-century elections, was a narrow victory owed almost entirely to negative polarization. AEI Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies Director Yuval Levin highlights the dangers of over-reading this mandate and especially of treating it as a specific endorsement of populism.