CUNY TV's Bob Herbert's Op-Ed.TV

These are traumatic times we are living through, and virtually all of us are paying a price physically, economically, and maybe above all, psychologically. Bob talks about the powerful psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with his guest, Dr. Michael Sweeney, a psychologist who is the director of the Metropolitan Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, located in New York City.

The City University of New York's Chancellor, Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, talks with Bob Herbert about how the nation's largest urban public university system is coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, the affects the pandemic has had on the students and faculty, budget concerns, as well as the lessons CUNY can learn from the racial justice protests as it looks to the future.

Guest David Daley talks with Bob about the issues surrounding the 2020 Presidential Election due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as his new book "UNRIGGED: How Americans are Battling Back to Save Democracy."

Bob welcomes Jeff Madrick, economist, journalist, and author of the new book Invisible Americans: The Tragic Cost of Child Poverty, to discuss why among large wealthy nations, the United States has the highest child poverty rate in the world. This issue is made even more consequential currently, with the high unemployment rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thomas McDonnell, Professor of Law at Pace University, discusses how the Trump administration has taken steps to criminalize the act of seeking asylum in the United States. Professor McDonnell is the co-author of a recent study in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, entitled “Enter at Your Own Risk: Criminalizing Asylum Seekers,” and tells Bob Herbert how these latest policies go against the 195...

We thought the long effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment had effectively been defeated back in 1982. Well, not so fast. The issue has re-emerged and the fight goes on. Bob’s guest, Dr. Julie Suk, an expert on the ERA, and a professor of sociology and political science at The CUNY Graduate Center, thinks we need to adjust the way we look at the ERA. She’d like us to adopt a perspective that...

Michael Bloomberg is one of the world’s wealthiest individuals. He was mayor of New York City for 12 extremely consequential years. He’s now running for president of the United States, and he’s the subject of a compelling new biography, “The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg.” Author Eleanor Randolph, a former member of the New York Times editorial board, discusses her in-depth look at Bloomberg's l...

One of the most disheartening aspects of the current era is the rise of anti-Semitism, including here in the United States and right here in the New York metropolitan area. Bob talks about the causes of this devastating surge in hatred, and what we can do about it, with guests Hindy Poupko, the deputy chief planning officer at UJA-Federation of New York; and Evan Bernstein, the New York/New Jersey...

Bob is joined by Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of PEN America, an organization that has taken a deep dive into the decline of local news coverage in the United States, and the disturbing consequences of that decline. The two discuss PEN America’s new report with the disturbing title, “Losing the News: The Decimation of Local Journalism and the Search for Solutions.”

The city of New York is endlessly fascinating, and much of its history is hiding in plain sight all around us. Bob is joined by an old friend and longtime colleague, who has written a wonderful new book that takes us on a surprise-filled tour of the city and reveals some of that extraordinary history. He’s Sam Roberts, the urban affairs correspondent of The New York Times, and his book is titled “...

We keep being told that the economy is great. It’s true that unemployment is at a near half-century low, and inflation is also low, but if the economy is so good, why do so many people feel financially insecure? Bob talks about all of this and more with guest Dr. Carl Van Horn, an expert on employment issues and the founding director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutg...

A frightening new book tells us that never in recorded history has the planet Earth warmed at the speed that it is warming now. One estimate says it is heating up ten times faster than at any point in the last 66 million years. The title of the book is “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming.” Joining Bob to discuss our planet’s future is author David Wallace-Wells, who is also a columnist an...

Robert Moses died nearly four decades ago. He’s largely forgotten now. But there was a time when he wielded the power of a colossus in New York City and New York State. Nick-named the master builder, he was the driving force behind the creation of Jones Beach State Park, the Triborough Bridge, the New York World’s Fair, and on and on and on. You’d imagine that someone with that kind of track recor...

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the women's right to vote, Bob Herbert welcomes Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer Brent Staples of The New York Times to discuss the lack of black representation in the narrative of the women's suffrage movement. Mr. Staples talks about some of the important black women in the movement who have gotten little notoriety throughout history.

As Central American migrants continue to travel to the U.S. seeking asylum, children are in some cases still being separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. There is no telling how many children were previously separated from their parents, who may never be reunited again, due to poor record keeping. Dr. Irwin Redlener, an internationally celebrated pediatrician and co-founder and pr...

Black ghetto can be a loaded term. The knee-jerk thought is of a place with rundown housing, high crime rates, family dissolution, unemployment. Bob's guest, Lance Freeman, sees the ghetto, with its long and troubled history, as a two-sided coin – and not all bad by any means. Freeman is a professor of urban planning at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservati...

Right now, one of the fundamental threats to our republic is the continuing, unconscionable assault on the voting rights of our citizens. Bob talks about this, as well as how New York's voting practices need to step into the 21st century, with his guest Sean Morales-Doyle, who serves as counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

There is substantial evidence, developed over many years, that the integration of public schools results in widespread socioeconomic benefits. These benefits accrue to all of the students who learn in an integrated setting. And yet there has been resistance, often bitter resistance, at nearly every turn when it comes to integrating our schools. At the moment we are not only NOT making progress on...

Climate change, with its rising temperatures and rising sea levels, its wildfires and extreme weather events, is a profound threat to much of the life on this planet, including human life. And yet we are not taking anything close to the steps necessary to mitigate this existential challenge. Bob explores some of the hard truths about climate change with his guest - one of the wisest minds on this...

The 1970’s we were in something like a golden era of professional journalism. Jobs were plentiful. Much of the coverage out of Vietnam was extraordinary. The civil rights movement was documented by many first-rate, and brave, reporters and photographers. The New York Times and then other publications would soon be publishing the Pentagon Papers. Woodward and Bernstein would win a Pulitzer Prize fo...

The arrest of Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, has thrown a national spotlight on illicit massage parlors in which women are required to provide sexual services to as many as a dozen men a day. The women are often trafficking victims in the grip of the criminal organizations that operate these parlors. Bob talks about this with his guests who offer legal and other help to women cau...

Civic ignorance is rampant in the U.S. and we are all paying a price for it. What can be done? Bob asks guest Michael Rebell, a Columbia professor who is engaged in an all-out campaign to improve the teaching of civics & government in our public schools.

Bob is joined by journalist Brent Staples, whose recent editorial in The New York Times talks about how strong of a need there was for ‘The Negro Motorist Green-Book,’ the travel guide from which the popular film "Green Book" gets its name.

Dexter Gordon was an extraordinary jazz musician, a tenor saxophonist, and composer. His autobiography was unfinished at the time of his death in 1990, and has now been completed by his widow, Maxine Gordon, who shares some of Dexter's stories.

Are autonomous vehicles really the wave of the future? Bob Herbert welcomes transportation expert Sam Schwartz to discuss his new book “NO ONE AT THE WHEEL: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future.”