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