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Robert Reich

Robert B. Reich, a co-founder of The American Prospect, is a Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. His website can be found here and his blog can be found here.

Recent Articles

Where Trump Sees Foreign Danger

Robert ReichAug 07, 2018
Joshua L. Jones/Athens Banner-Herald via AP Immigrant rights' activists march towards the University of Georgia Arch downtown in Athens, Georgia. W hat’s the most worrisome foreign intrusion into the United States—unauthorized immigrants, Chinese imports, or interference in our democracy? For Trump, it’s immigrants and imports. He doesn’t care much about the third. “Border security is national security,” Trump said last week, as he threatened a government shutdown if Congress didn’t come up with money to build a wall along the Mexican border (at an estimated cost at least $25 billion). Meanwhile, Trump has ordered his administration to consider raising tariff rates on $200 billion of Chinese goods, prompting China to threaten higher tariffs on $60 billion more of American goods. Yet Trump continues to assert that talk of Russian meddling in American elections is “a big hoax.” And his White House still has no coordinated plan for dealing with it. Trump has it backwards. Illegal...

Six Reasons for Hope in Trump Times

Robert ReichJul 31, 2018
Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP Demonstrators hold signs as they participate in the "Families Belong Together: Freedom for Immigrants" march in Los Angeles I n these darkest of days, here’s what gives me hope: First, Donald Trump has been a giant wake-up call that we can’t take democracy for granted. The young people of America get this. I’ve been teaching for 40 years and I don’t recall a generation as committed to social justice, reforming this country, and making it work for all and not just a few. Look at those kids in Parkland, Florida. Or the millions more who are getting involved in their communities and in politics. They are America’s future, and they won’t give up. The second thing that makes me optimistic is occurring at the grassroots of America, where there’s more activism than I remember in half a century. The #MeToo movement, Time’s Up, #BlackLivesMatter, #Neveragain, the Poor People’s Campaign, Indivisible.org, Swingleft.org . They and thousands of other groups and millions...

We're Living a Constitutional Crisis

Robert ReichJul 24, 2018
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik President Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House I keep hearing that if Trump fires Mueller, we’ll face a “constitutional crisis.” Or if Mueller subpoenas Trump to testify and Trump defies the subpoena, it’s a “constitutional crisis.” Or if Mueller delivers substantial evidence that Trump is guilty of colluding with Russia or of obstructing justice, and the House does nothing to impeach him, we have a “constitutional crisis.” Well, I have news for you. We’re already in a “constitutional crisis.” You see, the Constitution is a tiny document. It requires that presidents and others in positions of power be bound by norms, unwritten rules, and long-established understandings of their constitutional responsibilities. Yet look at what’s happened since January 2017: Trump fires the head of the FBI and conjures up a plot that the FBI installed a spy in his campaign; blames the entire Mueller investigation on a conspiratorial “deep...

What Are We to Do About Trump's Escalating Lies?

Robert ReichJul 17, 2018
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster President Donald Trump waves during a rally at the Four Seasons Arena at Montana ExpoPark, in Great Falls, Montana A s the political season heats up, Trump is ramping up his lies through his three amplifiers: Fox News, rallies, and Twitter. According to The Fact Checker’s database , the average daily rate of Trump’s false or misleading claims is climbing. The problem isn’t just the number or flagrancy of the lies—for example, that Putin and the Russians didn’t intervene in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump, or that the Mueller investigation is part of a Democratic plot to remove him. And it’s not just that the lies are about big, important public issues—for example, that immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans, or trade wars are harmless. The biggest problem is his lies aren’t subject to the filters traditionally applied to presidential statements—a skeptical press, experts who debunk falsehoods, and respected politicians who publicly...

Trump’s Art of the No Deal

One of the biggest cons from the biggest conman to occupy the Oval Office is that he’s a dealmaker.

Robert ReichJul 10, 2018
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) President Trump waves during a rally at the Four Seasons Arena at Montana ExpoPark on July 5, 2018, in Great Falls, Montana, in support of Representative Greg Gianforte and Senate candidate Matt Rosendale. T rump promised to be America’s dealmaker in chief. “We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal ,” he said in the speech announcing his candidacy. “I’m a negotiator. I’ve done very well over the years through negotiation,” he said during a Republican debate. “That’s what I do, is deals,” he said in May. “I know deals, I think, better than anybody knows deals.” Rubbish. So far, Trump has made no deals at all, and the ones he thinks he’s made have unraveled. He has no deal with North Korea. Following his June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un, Trump declared on Twitter that “there is no longer a nuclear threat” from North Korea. In fact, recent satellite images show that North Korea has upgraded a nuclear facility. It also appears to be finalizing the expansion...

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