Robert Reich

May 22, 2017 – European governments, preparing for a round of major summits with Donald Trump, are wary. I spent much of the past week speaking with officials and cabinet ministers in Europe. All they wanted to talk about was Trump. Here, in summary, are the most frequent remarks I heard from them, and from […]

May 14, 2017 – The question is no longer whether there are grounds to impeach Donald Trump. It is when enough Republicans will put their loyalty to America ahead of their loyalty to their party. Trump’s statements last week about his firing of former FBI director James Comey provide ample evidence that Trump engaged in […]

May 1, 2017 – After more than 100 days into his presidency, it seems fair to ask: What is Donald Trump’s governing philosophy? He isn’t really a Republican (he didn’t join the GOP until 2012). He’s hardly a free-market conservative (he’s eager to block trade and immigration). No one would mistake him for a libertarian (he’s […]

April 24, 2017 – Trump’s failure to accomplish little or any of his agenda during his first 100 days shouldn’t blind us to the vast harm he has done in this comparatively short time to our system of government, especially his degradation of the presidency. From early in the Republic, we have looked at the office […]

April 15, 2017 – What’s the “Trump Doctrine” of foreign policy? At first glance, foreign policy under Trump seems inconsistent, arbitrary, and devoid of principle. A few weeks ago, even before the airstrike on Syria, Trump communications director Mike Dubke told Trump’s assembled aides that international affairs presented a messaging challenge because the Trump administration […]

April 11, 2017 – 1. He said he wouldn’t bomb Syria. You bought it. Then he bombed Syria. 2. He said he’d build a wall along the border with Mexico. You bought it. Now his secretary of homeland security says “It’s unlikely that we will build a wall.” 3. He said he’d clean the Washington […]

April 5, 2017 – When Donald Trump was running for president, he talked a lot about putting people back to work. And one of the industries he focused on most was the coal industry. He even put on a hard hat and waved around a pick axe to show how much he loved coal. But […]

March 25, 2017 – House Speaker Paul Ryan, in his press conference following the demise of his bill to replace Obamacare, blamed Republicans who had failed to grasp that the GOP was now a “governing party.” “We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do,” said Ryan. “You just had […]

March 22, 2017 – America is in a crisis of governance. There is no adult in charge. Instead, we have as president an unhinged narcissistic child who tweets absurd lies and holds rallies to prop up his fragile ego, whose conflicts of financial interest are ubiquitous, and whose presidency is under a “gray cloud” of […]

March 16, 2017 – Donald Trump ran for president as a man of the people, who was going to fight for those who were left behind – but everything we’re hearing about his forthcoming federal budget says exactly the opposite: Spending that’s a great deal for big corporations that have hired armies of lobbyists, and […]

March 5, 2017 – Early Saturday morning, March 4, the 45th president of the United States alleged in a series of  tweets that former president Barack Obama orchestrated a “Nixon/Watergate” plot to tap Trump’s phones at his Trump Tower headquarters last fall in the run-up to the election. Trump concluded that the former president is […]

March 2, 2017 – Earlier this year the Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief insisted that the Wall Street Journal wouldn’t label Trump’s false statements as “lies.” Lying, said the editor, requires a deliberate intention to mislead, which couldn’t be proven in Trump’s case. But Donald Trump is the most lying president we’ve ever had, and he […]

Feb. 12, 2017 – Don’t be fooled by Trump’s and Republican promises to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. They could repeal it, but they can’t and won’t replace it. They’ve tried for years to come up with a replacement that keeps at least as many people covered. Their “replacement” never appears. So why do Republicans want to repeal […]

Feb. 7, 2017 – With congressional Republicans in the majority in Congress and unwilling to cross Donald Trump, the job of containing Trump’s incipient tyranny falls to three centers of independent power: the nation’s courts, its press, and a few state governments. Which is why Trump is escalating attacks on all three. The judiciary After […]

Jan. 30, 2017 – Donald Trump has reorganized the National Security Council – elevating his chief political strategist Steve Bannon, and demoting the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bannon will join the NSC’s principals committee, the top inter-agency group advising the President on national security. Meanwhile, the […]

Jan. 20, 2017 – The ongoing contest between the Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders wings of the Democratic Party continues to divide Democrats. It’s urgent Democrats stop squabbling and recognize seven basic truths: The Party is on life support. Democrats are in the minority in both the House and Senate, with no end in sight. […]

Jan. 16, 2017 – At his turbulent his news event last Wednesday (I won’t dignify it by calling it a news conference), Trump reiterated that he will build a wall along the Mexican border. “It’s not a fence. It’s a wall,” he said, and“Mexico will pay for the wall.” Here are 6 reasons why Trump’s […]