The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

The beginning of May before midterm elections marks the start of primary season and six months of fall campaigning. The conventional view this year is Democrats will be clobbered in November. Why? Because midterms are usually referendums on a president’s performance, and Biden’s approval ratings are in the cellar. But the conventional view could be wrong because it doesn’t account for the Democrat...

Consider the larger pattern. Putin invades Ukraine. Trump refuses to concede and promotes his Big Lie. Rightwing politicians in America and Europe fuel white Christian nationalism. Rightwing television pundits encourage racism and spur bigotry toward immigrants. Police kill innocent Black people with impunity. Powerful men sexually harass and abuse women. Politicians target LGBTQ youth. CEOs who a...

My informal weekly coffee klatch with Heather Lofthouse (my former student and Executive Director of Inequality Media) exploring the highs and lows of the week. As usual, pull up a chair and bring your morning cup. If you know others who might enjoy a good conversation over coffee, please share. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus e...

Guardrails against dangerous lies on Twitter? Now that Elon has total control over one of the major ways Americans find out what’s happening (I know, I know -- Twitter is vapid and filled with smears and jeers, but it has a hugely important role in shaping the news), what can be done to establish guardrails against dangerous lies? It seems likely that Musk will take down the few guardrails that re...

As Trump’s big lie of a stolen election began ricocheting across America in November 2020, Arizona’s Republican attorney general Mark Brnovich (pronounced “Burn-O-Vich”) spoke out forcefully on national television. He told the public that Donald Trump was projected to lose the swing state, and “no facts” suggested otherwise. (At the time I thought to myself “good for him. Maybe more Republican att...

Elon Musk struck a deal today to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion, in a victory by the world’s richest man. Twitter agreed to sell itself to Musk for $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the company’s share price this month before he revealed he was the firm’s single largest shareholder. Twitter’s founder and top managers had offered Musk a seat on the board but he didn't take it because h...

Another weekly informal conversation with Heather Lofthouse (my former student and now executive director of Inequality Media) on the news of the week. Please pull up a chair and a hot mug. 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

We recoil in horror as Putin and his forces wreak havoc and death on Ukraine — before our eyes and in real time. Both Putin and Ukraine President Zelensky repeatedly invoke “nationalism” and “patriotism,” but Putin’s nationalism and patriotism are manufactured to justify this brutal and unprovoked aggression while Zelensky’s words explain astonishing sacrifices now being made by ordinary Ukrainian...

On Friday, Trump endorsed J.D. Vance in the Ohio Senate Republican primary. This follows his endorsement of Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s Senate Republican primary and Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate race. The press has framed these endorsements as long-shot bets that “could put [Trump’s] desired image as a kingmaker at risk.” But this misses the point. What’s really at stake for Trump is the...

Heather and I had coffee this morning. As before, please pull up a chair. If you know other people who might enjoy a good conversation over coffee, please share. 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, I hope you’re as well as can be expected in these difficult times. A few days ago I focused on Elon Musk and his designs on Twitter. ( Here’s my post.) This morning, as I predicted, Musk put in a bid to buy the rest of Twitter and take it private. Musk’s bid of $54.20 per share is going to be hard for Twitter to resist, given Twitter’s duty to its shareholders: It’s nearly 40 percent high...

Memo to President Biden (and the Democrats) From: Robert Reich Re: Inflation Prices were 8.5 percent higher last month than they were a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning — the highest rate of inflation since 1981. The buying power of Americans is being squeezed more and more each day. You must explain what’s happening and put responsibility where it belongs. As America...

We begin another gut-wrenching week watching Putin’s barbarity in Ukraine. The Russian people know little about it because Putin has blocked their access to the truth, substituting propaganda and lies. Years ago, pundits assumed the Internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth. But dictators like Putin and demagogues like Trump have demonstrated how naïve that as...

This morning I had coffee once again with my colleague Heather Lofthouse (who runs Inequality Media) about the events of the week — Putin, Judge Jackson, and Republicans maneuvers, as well as some personal stuff (including something I’ve never before admitted to publicly). Please feel free to join us. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to b...

Yesterday, CEOs from America’s largest oil companies appeared before a House committee probing why they’re raising prices at the pump while raking in record profits and spending huge sums buying back their shares of stock. (Last year, Chevron, Exxon, BP, and Shell spent more than $44 billion on buybacks and dividends , and plan to spend $74 billion this year — money that should be used instead to...

Today’s Office Hours discussion question: Is a windfall profits tax a good idea? How could it get the political support it needs? Would this be helpful for the Democrats in the midterms? Background: Yesterday I testified before the Senate Budget Committee about the power of American corporations — now enjoying the highest profits in 70 years — to raise their prices. And I endorsed a windfall profi...

America is on the cusp of the largest inter-generational transfer of wealth in history. As wealthy boomers expire over the next three decades, an estimated $30 trillion will go to their children. Those children will be able to live off of the income these assets generate, and then leave the bulk of them – which in the intervening years will have grown far more valuable – to their own heirs, tax-fr...

I know the conventional wisdom about midterm elections — the party in power loses big — and I’ve lived through enough midterms to know that the conventional wisdom is mostly correct. Does this make Biden and the Democrats toast when it comes to retaining control of the House and Senate? No — especially because of one huge loose cannon aimed at the Republican Party: Donald Trump. About 30 percent o...

Yesterday was a big day for American workers. I want to start with the remarkable worker victory at Amazon’s giant warehouse on Staten Island and then move to yesterday’s great jobs report — and the real danger lying within it. First, the victory. America’s wealthiest, most powerful, and fiercest anti-union corporation — with the second-largest workforce in the nation (union-busting Walmart being...

Andrew Jackson allegedly defied the Supreme Court in 1832 over a case called Worcester v. Georgia , involving Georgia's attempt to apply state laws to Cherokee lands. As the story goes, Jackson announced “John Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it.” Whether Jackson actually said this is disputed, but it illustrates a fundamental truth about the Supreme Court: It has no power to enf...

A pandemic that hasn’t ended. Inflation that’s soaring. Putin’s war in Ukraine that could escalate into a nuclear confrontation. A climate crisis that’s worsening. Trump and his followers’ continued attacks on our democracy. I could go on. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a degree of stress I don’t remember feeling in a very long time. So here’s today’s Office Hours question: How are you st...

President Biden’s budget, which came out yesterday, proposes a new minimum tax of 20 percent on households worth more than $100 million — which the White House says will reduce federal budget deficits by $1 trillion over a decade. The tax would apply only to the top 0.01 percent -- the richest 1 percent of the richest 1 percent. Half of the expected $1 trillion in revenue would come from 704 house...

In a speech on Friday delivered from his office in the Kremlin, Putin criticized the West’s “cancel culture” which, he charged, is “canceling” Russia -- “an entire thousand-year-old country, our people.” It was the third time in recent months Putin has blasted the so-called “cancel culture.” Which is exactly what Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the GOP have blasted for several years. "The goal of cance...

As Putin’s war shakes up the world economy, the Fed last week raised interest rates by a quarter point and penciled in six more increases by the end of the year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell says he’s ready to do whatever it takes to bring inflation down, including following the example of his predecessor Paul Volcker, who increased interest rates to 20 percent in 1981. Volcker’s rate rise triggered a...

Joe Biden is in Europe today, consulting with NATO allies about how to ratchet up the pressure on Putin. I’ve been mulling how we might respond to Putin’s war not just by ratcheting up pressure but also by doing something positive for the world. As Europe and America cope with the energy problems resulting from the war, it strikes me that this is the perfect time to face the climate crisis and con...