The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

Friends,Today Heather and I take a hard look at political violence in America — not just this week’s heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk but other violence I’ve witnessed, and the nation’s history of violence in politics — and we ask whether there’s something unique to American culture that harbors such deep hatred that people feel compelled to murder others for their political beliefs. Yesterday, Trump doubled down on blaming what he calls the “radical left” for political violence in the United States. During an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” Trump was asked about the presence of radical individuals on both sides of the aisle and how it can be fixed to bring the country together. His response:“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. They don’t want to see crime. Worried about the border. They’re saying, We don’t want these people coming in. We don’t want you burning our shopping centers. We don’t want you shooting our people in the middle of the street. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy, although they want men and women sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders.”Instead of helping the country come together, Trump continues to pull us apart. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Trump’s economy is going down what he describes as a “sh*thole.” Job growth has stalled and prices continue to rise. The problem is it’s not just Trump’s economy; it’s also our economy. Today, Heather and I try to give some context to the bad economic news — looking at what it means politically, who is suffering most, and how it can possibly be turned around. Along the way, we talk about the extraordinary push-back by the federal courts and the hopes for the Democrats, and we venture into larger themes such as the centrality of science and truth in a democracy. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, and join our conversation. Oh, and don’t forget to buy my new book, Coming Up Short (you can support local bookstores by ordering it at bookshop.org), and see Heather and Elliot Kirschner’s new movie about my last class, The Last Class (to find a theater near you, click here). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today Heather and I come to you from one of our favorite local bookstores to emphasize the importance of free speech, free expression, and freedom to criticize the current regime — even as it seeks ever-greater control over the media, universities, museums, and our cities. Our neofascist emergency worsens.Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join in the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Michael and I are coming to you today from the Empire Café in Houston, Texas, where the coffee is superb and the service comes with a smile (the café’s motto is “corporate coffee sucks”). It’s a bit noisy here (for which I apologize) but, hey, that’s what you get when you mix it up with real people. While I’m apologizing, I also want to apologize for the petition that was inadvertently posted on this page yesterday. When its provenance couldn’t be validated, I had it taken down. I should have had it checked before it was posted but wasn’t able to because I’ve been on a book tour. Again, my apologies. Today, Michael and I dive into Trump’s plans for additional state gerrymandering around the country and his occupation of Washington, D.C. — both parts of his second attempted coup on America, designed to prevent a free and fair election in the midterms of 2026. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today, Heather and I look at how Trump has moved almost all law and policy into personal deal-making — whether it’s what tariff rate (that is, import tax) is to apply to which country, which corporations will be exempted from import taxes, which universities have to do what to satisfy him, which law firms have to do what to avoid his penalties, which media corporations have to genuflect in which ways to gain his approval or avoid his wrath, and so on. It’s a form of government completely foreign to the United States until now and that is based on Trump’s personal whims, his vindictiveness, and payoffs made to him. Call it, well, fascism. We also take a look at the economy — a bad jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which caused Trump to kill the messenger and fire the commissioner of Labor Statistics. He’s nuts. Out of his gourd. And very dangerous. The Trumping of America continues. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join in the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today we take another deep dive into the murky world of Epstein and Trump, looking at how Trump’s consolidation of power has made it harder for him to rebut charges of a cover-up. We also look at the stories that “Epsteingate” has crowded out this week: Palestinian children starving in Gaza because of Netanyahu’s policies (backed by Trump), more than a third of all federal judges complaining that Trump is defying them, and a mind-boggling number of people being detained in ICE’s inhumane detention camps. We also look at Trump’s silencing of critics such as Stephen Colbert, Washington Post columnists, and the students and faculty of Columbia University. Our special guest today is Elliot Kirschner, director of The Last Class film. (His latest Substack post is about the first time he and I ever met — the origin story of the film.)Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join in the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today, Heather and I explore why Jeffrey Epstein’s death in 2019 is now shaking the foundations of Trump and his regime. Why now? What is there about this alleged conspiracy that has made Trump so vulnerable? What does it tell us more broadly about the soaring distrust in our society toward elites that Trump exploited to get elected in 2016 and then again in 2024? What does it suggest Democrats ought to do, now and in the ramp-up to the 2026 midterm elections? Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today, Heather, Michael, and I do a deep dive into the cruel incompetence of the Trump regime — how Trump is hurting millions of people for no reason, whether he’s doing it because of cruelty or incompetence, and what all of us can do about it between now and the 2026 midterm elections (including not calling him “President,” because he considers himself president of only the people who voted for him). Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join in the discussion. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Happy Fourth of July weekend. Today Heather and I examine Trump’s newly enacted Big Ugly Bill — its record-breaking redistribution of income upward, its budget-busting deficits, and its creation of an anti-immigrant police state. And we explore whether there’s anything positive that could possibly come of this. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today, Heather and I come to you from Central Park in New York City, where we assess the remarkable upset victory of 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, over former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, in the race for New York City mayor.We also take a look at the bind Trump and his lackeys have gotten themselves into — with an attack on Iran that the Defense Intelligence Agency says sets back Iran’s nuclear program by only three months and that didn’t touch Iran’s stockpile of uranium, with a mammoth (“big beautiful”) budget bill that the Senate parliamentarian has shredded, and tariffs that are already hiking prices for American consumers. Wasn’t Trump elected to keep America out of foreign entanglements and to keep prices down?Please grab a cuppa, pull up a chair, take our poll, and join the discussion. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today Heather and I look at the war in Iran through the lens of Donald Trump’s insatiable need to expand and display his power. How can he even consider getting America into this war without consulting Congress? Doesn’t doing so also violate his promise to the American people in the 2024 election that he would avoid foreign entanglements? And who is advising him, now that half of the professionals on the National Security Council have been fired and neither Tulsi Gabbard (who’s supposed to be the intelligence czar) nor Pete Hegseth (at least formally the secretary of defense) is involved in Trump’s decision-making? We’ll get to these and other questions.Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join the discussion. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,That any of us have to care about the messy breakup of these two malignant narcissists — and that they both individually wield such massive power — is an indictment of our political system and further proves the poisonous influence of Big Money on our democracy. That’s today’s Coffee Klatch theme. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our survey, and join the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today Heather and I examine whether the three big political events of this week — Musk’s leaving the White House, the U.S. Court of International Trade’s striking down Trump’s tariffs, and Senate Republicans’ being stymied over Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful” (actually Ugly) budget bill — signal the beginning of the end of Trump. Is Elon really gone for good? Are Trump’s tariffs in real trouble? Is his Big Ugly bill destined for the political junkyard? We’ll probe these and other questions. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, answer our poll, and join in the discussion. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,V Spehar invited me to join them today to talk about how we should deal with America’s aging politicians — our “gerontocracy.” I’m something of an expert on the subject because I’ve been around politicians for over 50 years. Also I’m getting up there (I’ll be 79 years old soon). And I recently retired from teaching because I didn’t want to give students anything less than my best. So I know how difficult it is to give up a job you love. But, as I mention to V, we need a system that allows the relatively few old people who continue to do wonderfully well — look at Bernie Sanders, at the spry age of 83; I know few people half his age with as much energy and intelligence — to keep at it. We discuss the possible answers, and much more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,One of my favorite people in the world is the Reverend Dr. William Barber, whose moral and strategic insights at this horrific moment in our nation’s history are invaluable. I asked him to join me today to talk about what all of us can do to unite people in America in pursuit of social justice and against Trump. Barber is a Protestant minister, social activist, professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School, president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. He also serves as a member of the national board of the NAACP, and is the chair of its legislative political action committee. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends, Today Heather and I look at the Trump regime’s decision to bar international students from Harvard and ask, what’s the difference between a neofascist diktat and Trump’s orders? As in fascism, Trump arbitrarily targets particular institutions and people, then takes away their freedoms for no reason other than that they’ve opposed the regime. (In recent days, the regime has also charged, investigated, or threatened to investigate Kamala Harris, Letitia James, Andrew Cuomo, Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Bono, Oprah Winfrey, James Comey, unnamed “treasonous” Biden aides, the Kennedy Center, and the city of Chicago.)At the same time, as in authoritarian systems, Trump has openly and eagerly accepted personal gifts in return for unspecified favors — including money (mostly from foreign sources) for his crypto business and that $400 million Qatar “palace in the sky” (which the regime accepted this week, but which will be for Trump’s personal use). Under Trump — as in neofascism — the boundary between his personal, arbitrary, unconstrained power and the power of the state is obliterated. So please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today, Heather and I look into the schemes that Trump and the people around him are using to make themselves rich at the expense of the American people — starting with Trump’s business trip this week to the oil-rich kingdoms of the Middle East. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today Heather and I take a deep dive into the most corrupt presidential administration in history. We look in detail at Trump’s crypto deals designed to enrich him and his family and milk the presidency, and Musk’s deals to enrich himself by, for example, having the State Department push other nations to use his Starlink satellites. The stench from these and other examples of self-dealing is worse by the day — even as the regime cuts programs most Americans depend on in order to make room in the federal budget for another giant tax cut disproportionately benefiting big corporations and the super-rich. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join in the discussion. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today Heather and I examine the outlook for Trump, the Trump White House, Congress, and the economy. Now that we’ve finished the first hundred days, where does America go from here? Is there room for hope? I’m more optimistic than Heather because I believe opposition to Trump is growing. And it will become even larger if Trump and Republicans in Congress cut programs most Americans depend on in order to make space in the federal budget for a tax cut that disproportionately benefits the rich and big corporations. Heather is less optimistic. So it’s one of the klatches where we disagree. Hope you find it informative nonetheless. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join the conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,Today, Heather and I take a look at the shi*tstorm of Trump’s first hundred days (which doesn’t officially conclude until Wednesday), and ask what happened, why it’s so horrible, and how we’re likely to look back on it. Along the way, we examine whether its major theme has been chaos or cruelty, what’s happened to the economy, and why Trump’s polls are taking a dive. In sharp contrast, we also discuss the legacy of Pope Francis. Please pull up a chair, grab a cuppa, take our poll, and join in the discussion. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe