Today, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s Day One executive order canceling the right to birthright citizenship. Good. That executive order declared that children born in the U.S. would not be considered citizens if their parents were living in the country illegally or were visiting the country on temporary visas.

The executive order never took effect. It was quickly blocked by multiple lower courts because it appeared to directly conflict with the 14th Amendment, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

The Trump regime appealed the lower-court rulings, contending that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship provision had been misunderstood for more than a century. The administration argued that the drafters of the amendment were focused on guaranteeing citizenship for the children of former slaves—and that the amendment was never intended to extend citizenship to the children of people who weren’t living in the country legally.

Trump and his Solicitor General, who argued this case before the Court, also said that narrowing birthright citizenship was necessary to prevent “birth tourism”—the practice of immigrants coming to the U.S. to give birth here and obtain citizenship for their child.

Trump has been vowing to try to change the law since entering politics in 2015, arguing the 14th Amendment was written specifically to enshrine the rights of freed slaves. His critics have countered that it was always designed to apply to the children of immigrants too. A 1898 Supreme Court decision confirmed that U.S.-born children of immigrant parents are entitled to American citizenship.

Today, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the deeply-rooted understanding that virtually everyone born on American soil is automatically a U.S. citizen was enshrined in the Constitution with the passage of the 14th Amendment in in 1868: “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land. We keep that promise today.”

In another era, this would have been a no-brainer. No constitutional lawyer I know thought the Court would decide otherwise. The lower federal courts had consistently and unanimously ruled against Trump.

Had Trump won, it would have probably caused panic among recent immigrants and their families. Although Trump has insisted his policy would apply only to future births, it was far from clear that the logic of any win for Trump wouldn’t apply retrospectively if a future president (JD Vance? perish the thought) wanted to go there.

What I find troubling is that the decision was 5 to 4 rather than unanimous or nearly so, as it should have been.

Only five of the nine justice ruled against Trump on constitutional grounds. Brett Kavanaugh dissented on statutory grounds; while agreeing that Trump’s executive order was unlawful, he argued that the court should have resolved the case under federal immigration law rather than the Constitution.

The Court’s three most conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito — dissented. Thomas wrote for the group: “The Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”

Pure and utter claptrap.

Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito are so far to the right of America that their views on this case and other matters should be presumed bonkers. Yet what’s particularly sobering is that Trump is only one justice away from having a Supreme Court majority that would have gone his way on this absurd reading of the 14th Amendment.

Clearly, the Supreme Court must be changed — either by expanding the number of justices or by invoking term limits on Supreme Court justices. The Constitution would permit both remedies.

Perhaps the best thing about today’s majority decision is that it’s such a direct repudiation of Tump, who has long taken a personal interest in the issue. During his 2024 campaign, he made curtailing birthright citizenship a key element of his immigration platform.

When the high court heard arguments on the case in April, Trump took the unprecedented step of showing up in person for the hearing, making him the first sitting president ever to attend a Supreme Court argument. For the Court to so directly reject his position today is surely a humiliation for Trump.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

First of all, you should know that I spent five years of my life advising the commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission how they could best protect Americans from monopolies and deceptive corporate practices.

I’m proud of the work the FTC did then, and proud of much of what it’s accomplished since then. When I served there, the chair of the FTC was Michael Pertschuk, an energetic and charismatic trust-buster and consumer advocate. More recently, the FTC has been chaired by Lina Khan, who courageously stood up to some of the biggest and most politically-powerful corporations in America.

Part of the reason the FTC has been so effective is that it is — or was — independent, and therefore immune to the political moves of powerful corporations seeking to stop it from acting for the common good.

The FTC was established in 1914 as part of what’s known as the “progressive era” when the government first sought to rescue the nation from the grip of the robber barons who then ran the railroads, oil, shipping, and much of the rest of the economy — and corrupted the nation’s politics — during the First Gilded Age.

Reformers of that era created an income tax to try to limit the Robber Barons’ incomes, caps on corporate campaign expenditures to limit their political reach, and independent regulatory agencies such as the FTC to limit their power.

That progressive era was followed by the New Deal, when Congress and FDR established other independent regulatory agencies, modeled in part on the FTC, to use their expertise for the benefit of the American people — and not just the wealthiest an most powerful citizens whose unbridled greed had led the nation into the Great Depression.

We’re now in America’s Second Gilded Age, when a new set of robber barons (think Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry and David Ellison) are running much of the economy and corrupting our politics.

Unfortunately, we now have a president and a Supreme Court, three of whose members he appointed, who are in their pockets.

Hence, today’s Supreme Court ruling that a president can utterly disregard the will of Congress and install his own hacks in all independent regulatory agencies (with the odd exception of the Federal Reserve Board).

Today’s ruling is in direct conflict with a 1935 case in which the Court ruled that FDR could not replace an FTC commissioner because Congress had explicitly given FTC commissioners protection against such firing, in a case known as Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Today marks the culmination of a years-long weakening of that New Deal-era precedent.

Humphrey’s Executor v. United States concerned a federal law that protected commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission, saying they could be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office” — the same language that Congress has since used to protect most other independent commissioners and board members throughout government.

Franklin D. Roosevelt nonetheless fired commissioner William Humphrey, arguing only that Humphrey’s actions were not aligned with the administration’s policy goals. The Supreme Court held that the firing was unlawful and the law establishing the independence of the Federal Trade Commission was constitutional.

But the Roberts Supreme Court doesn’t like independent regulatory agencies. Most of the current justices subscribe to what’s called the “unitary executive” theory, a bonkers notion that the framers intended for a president to have total control over every aspect of the executive branch.

It’s a bonkers theory because the framers didn’t say anything like this. In fact, their biggest fear was that the executive branch would become too powerful.

In 2020, the Roberts Supreme Court laid the groundwork for reversing Humphrey’s Executor in a case involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The law that created the bureau — again, using language identical to that at issue in Humphrey’s Executor — said the president could remove its director only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

In a 5-4 decision, the Roberts Supreme Court struck down that provision, ruling that it violated the separation of powers and that the president could remove the bureau’s director for any reason.

Roberts, writing for the majority, said the presidency requires an “energetic executive.” He continued: “In our constitutional system, the executive power belongs to the president, and that power generally includes the ability to supervise and remove the agents who wield executive power in his stead.”

Two justices — Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — would have pulled the plug on independent agencies then and there. Thomas wrote: “The decision in Humphrey’s Executor poses a direct threat to our constitutional structure and, as a result, the liberty of the American people. With today’s decision, the court has repudiated almost every aspect of Humphrey’s Executor. In a future case, I would repudiate what is left of this erroneous precedent.”

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for what were then the court’s four liberals, dissented, saying the Constitution did not address the scope of the president’s power to fire subordinates. Congress should therefore be free, she said, to grant agencies “a measure of independence from political pressure.”

That 2020 decision by the majority of the Supreme Court anticipated the Supreme Court’s decision in July of 2024 that granted Trump, then a private citizen, immunity from prosecution for any “official” conduct during his first term.

Of all the things the framers of the Constitution worried about, their biggest worry was that a president would become as powerful as a king. Which is why they created Congress and the judiciary — to check and constrain him.

Congress has by now established 19 independent regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Office of Special Counsel.

These independent agencies, staffed with experts, have become a major countervailing power to the political clout of large corporations.

But as of today, they’re no longer independent and no longer have any countervailing power.

Today’s ruling overturns the basic idea — part of the fabric of our government for well over a century — that Congress has the power to create independent agencies.

As the nation prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of our independence from a king, the Supreme Court and our current president are doing everything possible to resurrect a king in America.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

JD Vance said on Friday that the U.S. wins “either way” in negotiations with Iran. “If we make the final deal, then great,” Vance told HBO’s Bill Maher. “If we don’t make the final deal, their nuclear program is still destroyed. They’re still much weaker as a country.”

Just hours after Vance’s appearance on HBO, Iran launched attack drones on Bahrain — which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters, a major logistical base for U.S. military operations. Iran also struck an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, its second attack on a ship since Thursday.

So much for Iran being much weaker.

Pressed by Maher on whether Iran’s nuclear program has been destroyed, Vance shot back: “What part of it is not destroyed? The thing that you have to destroy is their ability to enrich uranium, which has been destroyed.”

In fact, Iran still has a stockpile of 60 percent-enriched uranium, which experts concede could be turned into a nuclear weapon.

Vance’s media appearance came two days after he visited the Richard Nixon presidential library and museum in California to talk about his new book on his journey from atheism to allegedly devout Catholicism.

During his visit he defended Nixon for the Watergate break-in scandal that ended his presidency. “I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance — but I think deservedly so,” Vance said of Nixon. “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.” It was the “deep state that took down Richard Nixon” — not Nixon’s serious crimes.

Hello? The only conceivable reason Watergate might not bring down a presidency tomorrow or be a 12-hour story is the gargantuan criminality and corruption of the Trump-Vance regime, which puts Watergate in the minor league by comparison.

I raise Vance’s recent bizarro comments because in a few months he’ll be actively campaigning to be the Republican candidate for president in 2028.

He’s a more dangerous demagogue than Trump because he wraps his demagoguery in the apparent thoughtfulness of a graduate of Yale Law School and a serious best-selling author.

I’ve spent the last two days reading his latest book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, a memoir focusing on his 2019 conversion to Catholicism, and can assure you of three things: First, it’s a serious book. Second, Vance’s mind is as vacuous and unprincipled as he is in person. Third, the book isn’t worth reading.

In one of the few mea culpas in the book, Vance writes that it was “boneheaded” of him — “one of the dumbest things I ever said” — to call Kamala Harris and several other prominent Democrats “childless cat ladies who want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” In the book Vance calls the insult, “intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating.”

What Vance doesn’t admit to is that, when his remark resurfaced during his early days as Trump’s running mate, he refused to apologize or express any regret for it. “Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats,” he said then — sarcastically — adding that “if you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” which in his view had made the entire Democratic Party “anti-family and anti-child.”

Vance’s intentionally provocative rather than illuminating demagoguery was in evidence again when he insisted during the 2024 campaign that the pets of upright Americans residing in Springfield, Ohio, were being “abducted and eaten” by Haitian immigrants “who shouldn’t be in this country.”

When confronted with irrefutable evidence that Haitian immigrants were not eating pets in Springfield, Vance admitted publicly that he was speaking, shall we say, metaphorically: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he told CNN.

It’s much the same with Vance’s recent response to the fatal stabbing of Henry Nowak by Vickrum Digwa in the British city of Southampton. After Digwa was sentenced to life imprisonment, Vance declared that Nowak would still be alive had Europeans “stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

Inconveniently for Vance, Digwa didn’t migrate to Britain. He was born and raised there.

Vance would never have become a senator from Ohio in 2022 were it not for the billionaire tech financier Peter Thiel, who staked $15 million on Vance’s election — a major portion of all the funds that went into Vance’s Senate race.

Before running for the Senate, Vance had worked for Thiel’s California venture capital firm and was part of Thiel’s libertarian community of rich crypto bros, tech executives, back-to-the-landers, and disaffected far-right intellectuals.

Because Thiel had been a major funder of Trump’s 2016 presidential run, he had significant influence with Trump when urging him to pick Vance for his vice president.

Why was Thiel such a devoted sponsor of Vance? Because Thiel saw in his protege a future leader of a political movement to turn the U.S. away from democracy. “For Peter,” said one of the people familiar with his thinking, “Vance is a generational bet.”

Thiel is a self-styled libertarian who once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Bullshit. Freedom is incompatible with democracy only if you view democracy as a potential constraint on your wealth and power.

Thiel and Vance believe that the only way true libertarians can win in the U.S. is for a Caesar-like figure to wrest power from the U.S. establishment and install a monarchical regime, run like a startup.

The first step, as Vance offered in a 2021 podcast, is to replace “every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state … with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country, and say” — as did Andrew Jackson — that “the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

The next step is to foment so much division and bigotry inside the U.S. and within other major Western nations that people come to view those on the other side of the political divide as the source of everything that’s wrong with their lives — which Vance has been eagerly trying to do.

That way, they won’t look upward to see that the billionaire robber barons, plutocrats, and oligarchs of this second Gilded Age have grabbed most of the wealth and power for themselves. Hence, average people will trade in democracy for strongman autocracy.

Behind Vance’s demagoguery about the U.S. winning either way in Iran, Nixon being taken down by the deep state, childless cat ladies, the Democratic Party being anti-family and anti-child, Haitian-Americans eating pets, and immigrants threatening Western civilization is a deadly serious plan to unite the far-right of America and Europe and rid much of the world of democracy. If Vance becomes president, he’s intent on furthering the job.

Vance resembles Trump in every way — he lies effortlessly, he’s utterly without principle, and he’s intent on gaining power — except that he’s smarter and more ruthless than Trump.

Take note and beware.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

I keep getting phone calls from politicians wanting to know what I make of the extraordinary victories at the polls this week of young Democratic Socialists. Here’s what I tell them:

The most powerful force in both the Republican and Democratic Parties today is anti-establishment populism. It’s roughly similar to the late 19th century when the Populist Party challenged the dominance of corporate elites, national banks, and railroad monopolies, although this time I believe it will stick.

Among today’s Republicans, this has taken the form of Trump’s MAGA movement against immigrants, Black people, Muslims, “woke,” “DEI,” and especially Democratic “coastal elites” who are supposedly enabling these groups to overtake white Christian America.

Pitted against the Republican populists are “never-Trumpers” who cling to the older Republican virtues of fiscal austerity and isolationism.

Among Democrats, anti-establishment populism has taken the form of a movement against economic elites who are rigging the system against average working people. Its major proponents are Bernie Sanders, AOC, Zohran Mamdani, and other predominantly young Democratic politicians — such as Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, Janeese Lewis George, the presumptive mayor of Washington, D.C., and a bevy of newly-elected members of Congress from New York — Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Brad Lander.

Pitted against these economic populist in the Democratic Party are so-called “moderate” and corporate Democrats who pine after the party of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and seek at most incremental reforms of American capitalism.

In other words, the essential fissure inside American politics today doesn’t run horizontally from “right” to “left,” as those two poles have been defined since World War II.

It runs vertically from bottom to top.

Trump’s MAGA voters in the bottom view themselves through the lens of white Christian nationalism and believe the top has conspired to make them less dominant in American society.

Sanders’s, AOC’s, and Mamdani’s voters in the bottom view themselves through the lens of economic class and believe the top has conspired to rig the economy against them.

Both shifts have left the establishment behind. America’s corporate and financial elites love Trump’s tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks but feel uncomfortable with the white Christian nationalism now at the heart of the GOP.

They’re likewise content to deal with incremental reforms pushed by moderate Democrats but dislike the wealth taxes, rent-controls, single-payer health plans, and other safety-net expansions at the heart of the emerging Democratic Party.

I expect the establishment will fight to regain control of both parties.

One way will be to equate the populists with bigotry and extremism — in the GOP, to condemn the populists as racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and fascist; in the emerging Democratic Party, to condemn the populists as antisemitic and communist.

There’s enough truth in both caricatures to cause many voters to back away from populism altogether.

But I urge cooler heads to see something else in the rising populism within both parties — a potential political alliance against the grotesque inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity that have scarred modern America and fueled the populist anger in the first place.

The share of the U.S. economy going to working people is the lowest it’s been since 1947; the share going to corporate profits, the largest since 1950. One trillionaire and a brute of billionaires are now, in fact, running much of America.

Neither income nor wealth are zero-sum contests in which some people’s success can be achieved only at the cost of other people’s losses. But power is a zero-sum contest. And as power has gone to the top — and is has, whether we’re talking about the top 0.01 percent or 0.1 percent or 1 percent — everyone else has lost agency over their lives.

Both never-Trumper Republicans and “moderate” Democrats are struggling to articulate a message that isn’t just “we’re not Trump.” But given the gross inequalities in American society today, that’s a nearly impossible task.

Both Republican and Democratic establishments would be better served by overtly rejecting racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, as well as antisemitism and communism, while joining with populists to boldly change the system so that none of these were attractive. Make homes affordable, make healthcare accessible, put childcare and eldercare within reach of the average working family, and they won’t be.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

The real way to read the immigration decisions the Supreme Court issued yesterday is not to see them solely as losses for immigrants to the United States or the rights of immigrants. They are much larger losses. They are losses for the authority of Congress to have its laws fully executed by a president who doesn’t agree with them.

Markwayne Mullin vs. Al Otro Lado concerns a 1917 law that requires immigration officers to inspect noncitizens who arrive at ports of entry to determine whether they may enter the United States. Congress amended the law in the Refugee Act of 1980 to allow noncitizens fleeing persecution in their home country to apply for asylum as part of this inspection process.

The Act lays out a required set of procedures to guide this process. It says that a noncitizen who seeks admission to the United States “may apply for asylum.” If the noncitizen lacks valid travel documents, the officer “shall order [her] removed” unless she conveys an intention to apply for asylum or a fear of persecution, which in turn requires the officer to “refer” her for further processing of her asylum application.

This system is designed to ensure that the U.S. government considers the application of each person seeking to come into the United States to determine who should be let in, who should be turned away, and who should be allowed to apply for asylum.

But yesterday, the Supreme Court’s majority held that a president may circumvent these requirements simply by having U. S. immigration officers stand at the border and physically block noncitizens from setting foot on U. S. soil — even if the asylum seeker is certain to be persecuted, or killed, if she is turned away.

What happened to the Refugee Act of 1980 and the specific procedures outlined in it? The Supreme Court ignored it.

The other decision released yesterday, Markwayne Mullin vs. Dahlia Doe, concerns another law, part of the Immigration Act of 1990 called Temporary Protected Status. For over a decade administrations have provided humanitarian Temporary Protected Status relief to Haitian and Syrian nationals coming to the United States.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court’s majority held that federal courts may not review the Secretary of Homeland Security’s compliance with that law. But in fact the Immigration Act of 1990 specifically allows judicial review of whether the Secretary adhered to the procedures the law requires — exactly what the plaintiffs disputed.

It would be easy to see these two cases solely through the lens of immigration — and conclude that the Supreme Court’s decisions yesterday simply backed Trump’s and his fanatical underling Stephen Miller’s commitment to block noncitizens from the United States or to force them out. And surely these are the consequences of both of of yesterday’s rulings.

But the decisions are even darker and more dangerous than this. Even in the face of two laws in which Congress instructed the executive branch to do certain things, a majority of the current Supreme Court — the abominable Roberts Court — has bent over backwards to ignore those laws.

This must be seen for what it really is — a systemic effort by the six Republican appointees on the court to shrink congressional authority and enlarge the authority of the executive branch.

If there was any doubt before, there should be none now: The Supreme Court is part of the anti-democracy movement led by Trump and the billionaires behind him.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

The last time Americans faced such overwhelming evidence that the monied interests were screwing them over was the Great Crash of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression, resulting in the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, starting in 1933.

The one silver lining of the current Trump-Musk-Bezos-Ellison-Murdoch-Koch horror show is that most Americans now know beyond any reasonable doubt that they’re on the losing side of a class war, and are justifiably p------

America’s first trillionaire is a vicious white supremacist who’s stirring up hate around the world and backing Republican candidates with big bucks. American billionaires, meanwhile, are openly sucking up to America’s first dictator, spending lavishly on whatever he wants, and gobbling up media outlets so most Americans won’t know what’s going on.

Where has this gotten us? Workers’ share of the nation’s income has now dropped to the lowest it’s been since records began in 1947, while profits’ share is the highest since 1950 (showing up in a rip-roaring stock market).

This is morally wrong. “Income from capital risks replacing income from labor,” Pope Leo wrote in Magnifica Humanitas, his recent encyclical letter.

It’s also undermining our democracy. “America has a choice,” the jurist Louis Brandeis is reputed to have said. “We can have great wealth in a few hands or we can have a democracy, but we cannot have both.”

It’s time for Democrats to take on the class war that’s being waged by the nation’s oligarchy against most Americans by becoming class warriors themselves.

By class warrior I don’t mean resorting to violence or name-calling. I mean recognizing that a billionaire class is bad for America and calling for bold changes to reverse it: taxing great wealth, busting up monopolies, strengthening labor unions, raising the minimum wage, demanding profit-sharing and capital-sharing, ensuring Medicare for all and a universal basic income, and getting big money out of politics.

FDR wasn’t afraid to be a class warrior: “Never before in all our history have [the monied interests] been so unified against one candidate as they stand today,” he thundered in 1936. “They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

But these days, most Democratic politicians are reluctant to take on the oligarchs. Other than Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Zohran Mamdani, who else is loudly doing it?

Instead of being class warriors, many Democratic politicians are class worriers. They openly worry that inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity are out of control — but they won’t fight for what must be done. I’m talking about Third-way “moderate” Democrats who focus on “suburban swing” voters. and Washington-based consultants who urge Democratic candidates to move to the “center.”

Some Democrats are simply class wimps, so afraid of offending the monied interests that fund their campaigns they won’t even support modest reforms.

Even here in California, the putative home of progressive politics in America, too many Democratic politicians are wimping out. California Governor Gavin Newsom publicly opposes the wealth tax initiative now on California’s November ballot, for fear billionaires will leave the state (they won’t). San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie led the opposition to a city ballot measure to expand the city’s higher corporate tax rate on companies whose CEOs make at least 100 times more than their median employees. The measure was narrowly defeated.

This has to change. Unless Democrats stand up to the oligarchs now running this nation, there won’t be any alternative to Trump Republicanism in the future, or any reason for a Democratic Party.

This should be the Democrats’ hour. With inequality at levels never before seen, with a racist trillionaire and scores of billionaires poisoning our politics, with corporate profits at record heights while most American workers struggle harder than ever just to stay afloat, with a Republican majority in Congress slashing Medicaid and food stamps to finance a tax cut for the super-rich, with the looming threat of AI destroying jobs, and with one of the most brazenly corrupt politicians in American history now occupying the Oval Office — with all of this, Democrats should be at least as loud as they were under FDR.

The Democratic Party must seek to return to the American people the wealth and power that the obscenely rich have taken from them. This should be the core Democratic message. It explains the affordability crisis. It reveals the epidemic of corruption. It clarifies corporate welfare and crony capitalism. It shows what must be done.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

Referring to the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, Minnesota governor Tim Walz commented on X: “Found an imaginary problem, said only they could fix it, didn’t listen to experts, hired buddies who grifted millions, failed miserably, bragged how great it went. The entire Trump presidency in a nutshell.” (Walz could have added: “blamed others for his failure, conjured up a conspiracy, then prosecuted them.”)

One remarkable aspect of Trump’s horrendous reign is how many crises and problems he’s brought on himself — created them out of thin air. Then he brags about how well he’s handled them. And when they go wrong — as they inevitably do — he casts blame on others or on his political opponents.

Four examples from the last few days:

I. The Return of Operation Metro Surge

U.S. prosecutors in Minnesota on Tuesday announced charges against 15 people they say conspired to “violently oppose immigration law enforcement.”

But when repeatedly questioned by the press, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen failed to describe a single example of injuries to federal agents.

Rosen has a dubious track record with this kind of prosecution. In the months after “Operation Metro Surge,” launched by the Trump regime last December, federal prosecutors charged three dozen Minnesotans in a first wave of cases allegedly involving assaulting or impeding federal immigration agents. Most were dismissed or downgraded.

So why is Minnesota’s U.S. attorney announcing new charges? Rosen’s predecessor as U.S. attorney, Joseph Thompson, said he doesn’t understand it. “I think most people, on both of the sides of the political aisle, viewed [Metro Surge] as a disaster for the administration,” Thompson told The Wall Street Journal. “Why you would want to go back and re-litigate this is beyond me.”

One clue lies in the timing of the new charges — coming just two weeks after the John F. Kennedy Library awarded its 2026 Profiles in Courage Award to the people of the Twin Cities for their resistance to Operation Metro Surge.

A bipartisan committee praised the community for defending constitutional rights and demonstrating civic courage:

“Tens of thousands took to the streets to peacefully protest federal overreach and threats to immigrant families and constitutional protections, while others documented enforcement activity and alerted neighbors to federal agents’ presence. Faith leaders organized demonstrations, community groups built rapid-response networks, labor leaders and small business defended workers, and volunteers provided critical support and resources. Across religious, racial, and political lines, a broad coalition of residents of the Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs united in peaceful resistance despite violent confrontation and real personal risk, defending their neighbors’ rights and strengthening the national movement to protect American democracy.”

Trump is presumed to have a grudge against the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award because last year’s award went to his former vice president, Mike Pence, for explicitly resisting Trump's demands to overturn the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021.

II. Trump’s Unedning War in Iran

On Sunday, negotiators for Iran and the United States met in Switzerland for a little over an hour. No progress was made. Iranian negotiators insisted on an end to the war between Israel (a U.S. ally) and Hezbollah (an Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon) as a condition for further talks, according to Iranian state media.

The talks were also strained by Trump’s renewed threats against Iran. Fox News reports that Trump, in an interview, said he had spoken with Iranian officials Saturday night and warned them not to close the Strait of Hormuz. “You close it, and you won’t have a country,” Fox said, quoting Trump. “You won’t even make it back to your f—--- country.”

The Iranian delegation in Switzerland decided to suspend the talks due to Trump’s threats, according to Nour News, which is affiliated with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, said it was unclear if the talks will resume.

Iran’s lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on social media that the United States should be careful about issuing threats, adding that Iranian armed forces were prepared to respond. “No matter how much they talk, it is we who act,” he wrote.

Iran says the strait is once again closed. World oil prices are again rising.

One Republican senator described the war in Iran and the sputtering peace talks as “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”

Trump continues to look for a way out, at least for himself. “If it works out, I’m going to take the credit,” Trump said of the peace agreement, only half in jest. “If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD.”

III. Prices Continue to Rise

On Sunday, Trump celebrated Father’s Day with a social media post touting that the U.S. has the “BEST ECONOMY EVER.”

“Happy Father’s Day!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Our Country is doing GREAT. Record Jobs Numbers and Stock Market, BEST ECONOMY EVER! Greatest Military in the World, by far. We are WINNING on all fronts, WINNING LIKE NEVER BEFORE. GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!!”

Inflation in May increased to 4.2 percent, its highest point in three years, with the food index seeing a 3.1 percent increase over the past year and a nearly 4 percent bump in energy prices. Wages are not rising as fast, which means most Americans are becoming poorer.

The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released last week shows that only 33 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, his lowest point in both of his terms and 3 points lower than former president Biden at his all-time low.

Trump has long dismissed “affordability” as an issue Americans are concerned about, saying last week that affordability is a “fake word, made up by the Democrats.”

IV. The Reflecting Pool Worsens

All of which brings us back to the Reflecting Pool. Two weeks ago, Trump declared that his decision to repaint the Pool “American Flag blue” was not simply a “paint job” but “highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last for 100 years.” The dark blue paint that Trump insisted on is now peeling, and green algae are returning.

But the blue paint is now peeling and the algae are back.

On Friday night, Trump blamed “Radical Left Lunatics, most likely Dumocats [sic], who have spent their lives trying to ruin our Country” for “some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool” and linked it to the etching of “8647” into the grass on the National Mall days earlier, adding that law enforcement is investigating.

Then on Saturday, Trump doubled down, claiming that “multiple individuals” had taken “some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete. These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments. Years in jail! Work will begin immediately on its repair.”

So far, five people have been arrested for vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, according to Trump officials. But the evidence against them is weak at best. For example, former Olympic canoe racer David Hearn, 67, was arrested after he touched a flap of blue material partially detached from the bottom of the pool. Hearn, who says he has a background in material science, told CNN he checked out the pool after reading reports of algae in the water and paint or sealant peeling off the bottom. “I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn told The Washington Post. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

Yet the Reflecting Pool’s new blue surface isn’t plastic like a typical pool lining, which can be cut. It’s a coarse coat of dark blue paint. It’s peeling because the paint job — done by a Trump donor who had been given the no-bid contract — was obviously done badly, as well as being way over budget. And the algae have returned not because of vandalism but because the dark blue paint has trapped more heat, rapidly creating a friendly habitat for the algae.

As Tim Walz says, it’s the entire Trump presidency in a nutshell.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

For the next 135 days, our first and most important goal is to end Republican control of Congress, thereby limiting Trump’s reign of criminality, corruption, cruelty, and treachery.

This is a moral imperative for every one of us who believes in a decent society.

I know, I know — you’re exhausted. You’ve been doing everything you can to fight this regime — to protect the vulnerable, stop the bigotry, end the violence at home and abroad — and you feel worn out. I often feel the same.

But we have no choice. Trump is getting crazier and more dangerous by the day.

A few congressional Republicans are showing a bit of backbone, especially those who aren’t running again because Trump has supported their opponents in a Republican primary (Texas Senator John Cornyn, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie).

But most of the GOP in Congress are as cowardly and shameful as any group of politicians has ever been in American history. They should all be swept out of office.

This means we must keep fighting even harder over the next 135 days — ensuring that Democratic candidates have our support (money, time, and energy),** that every qualified voter is registered, that Trump and his neofascist goons don’t interfere in our voting system, and that November 3rd’s blue wave is so large as to overwhelm any attempt by Trump to meddle.

More than 6,000 of you answered my Office Hours question this past week about your most important criterion for supporting congressional candidates in the midterms (I used Maine’s Graham Platner as an illustration).

Over half of you (53 percent) listed taking back control of Congress as most important, 34 percent said it was a candidate’s personal opposition to Trump and the monied interests, and 8 percent of you said a candidate’s history and character were most important. (Five percent cited other criteria.)

Among comments that elicited the most positive responses from you were these:

Chris Lemon: “There’s no second place prize in an election. Furthermore, the moral high ground is a cold windswept place with bad cell phone reception. Getting rid of the GOP is the only goal at this point, or should be. A few years back, I was talking to some folks who were going to vote for Jill Stein instead of H.Clinton. I asked if they were familiar with Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign. None of them knew the name. Sometimes you just want to cry.”

Mike Hammer: “I live in Maine and there is some questioning, some soul-searching about Platner’s character. The big picture is how we begin, at this time to take our country back and understand the damage that Susan Collins has brought by voting MAGA or with Trump was 95% of the time. There’s no law stating that we have to love Platner but that doesn’t mean we can’t vote for him. Time will tell.”

Mary Jean Holt: “I am an old, white Maine woman, faithful democrat from my youth (Republican), and 85 today. WHAT is WRONG with people? Platner is an excellent candidate, IMHO. I live with (and through the Vietnam War) a Vietnam Vet, married 61 years and know the harm that stupid, deadly wars do to all of us. I give Graham Platner a lot of credit, his wife, too. Just wish he’d trim up that beard a bit. Besides Bernie says he’s OK and I have Never disagreed much with Bernie, nor AOC.”

Diana Seidel: “I’m also an old white woman (78) living in Maine and will happily, enthusiastically vote for Platner. He speaks to all the issues I care about.”

Stephen: “I’m a native Mainer, so the Platner question is more than theoretical. Àfter hearing the accusations, the stories, the rumors, and Graham’s own story of personal growth, recovery, and redemption, I have no difficulty giving him a chance. I think the negative image surrounding him is at least as much a product of the media jackals eager to create a scandalous story as it is to the actual facts. I also think there’s an element of social snobbery at work. News pundits and others, look at Platner from their corporate offices and see a guy who’s rough around the edges who they can’t imagine being capable of being a Senator.”

Susan Borden: “There is the possibility that some see in Platner’s story qualities of character one would like more of - the ability to modify one’s behavior in favor of creating a kinder, fairer, more sustainable world/country/community.”

** I’ve listed below the candidates for Senate and House that in my humble opinion both need and deserve your support (for more information, click on their names).

That support isn’t limited to money (although the links below are for funding). It can be volunteering: to write postcards to constituents in the state or congressional district, to phone them, even to go to the state or district (if you don’t already live there) and ensure that voters are registered and have all the information they need about how to vote and whom to vote for.

IMHO, these candidates for the U.S. Senate most need and deserve your support:

In Georgia: Jon Ossoff

Ohio: Sherrod Brown

Maine: Graham Platner

Texas: James Talarico

North Carolina: Roy Cooper

Iowa: Josh Turek

Michigan: Depending on the result of the August Democratic primary, either Abdul El-Sayed (a Bernie Sanders-endorsed doctor who supports Medicare for All and getting Big Money out of politics), or Rep. Haley Stevens (a so-called “moderate” Democrat who is receiving major financial support from AIPAC). I favor El-Sayed, but if Stevens is selected, I’m 100 percent for her.

For the House, your support can mean most to these candidates:

AZ-1: Depending on the outcome of the July 21 primary, I’m for either Amish Shah or Marlene Galán-Woods.

CA-45: Derek Tran

FL-14: Kathy Castor

ME-2: Matt Dunlap

MI-10: My favorite is Christina Hines, but I’d take Tim Greimel or Eric Chung over any Republican (the primary there is August 4).

NJ-09: Nellie Pou

NY-19: Josh Riley

OH-9: Marcy Kaptur

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

In December 2025, Trump axed today’s holiday — Juneteenth, the official celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation — from the free admission days at the more than 100 national parks across America. He also axed Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a free admission day.

Instead, he substituted his own birthday, June 14, as a free admission day.

There you have it: the venal combination of Trump’s white supremacy and his malignant narcissism.

It’s much the same with Trump’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday. He has erased any mention of the slavery that scarred most of America’s first century and of Jim Crow, during most of the next — and has instead merged the nation’s anniversary with his own 80th birthday.

In 2020, Trump scheduled a campaign rally for himself on Juneteenth in Tulsa, Oklahoma — the site of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. (After a wave of criticism, he rescheduled it for the next day.)

America can probably survive Trump’s malignant narcissism. It’s unclear how well we can endure his white supremacy.

On May 21, Trump eased the regime’s cap on the number of refugees who can enter the United States by 10,000 slots — from 7,500 to 17,500 — all reserved for white South Africans. The ostensible reason: an “emergency … due to recent increases in the incitement of racially motivated violence on the part of the Government of South Africa.”

Rubbish. According to investigative reporters in South Africa, such as Nechama Brodie, who has written extensively about farm murders there, white South Africans are not being persecuted. “Studies consistently show that white South Africans have the highest employment levels, highest education levels and highest income levels of all groups in South Africa, despite being a minority,” Brodie said.

Trump’s advocacy for white Afrikaners is in sharp contrast to his dismantling of America’s refugee program for people of color (between 2004 and 2019, refugee allocations were divided among Africa, East Asia, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America/Caribbean, and Near East/South Asia).

Trump has a long history of white supremacist activities, beginning with the 1973 lawsuit brought against Trump management for allegedly discriminating against Black renters. He took out full-page ads in 1989 calling for the death penalty for the five Black and Latino teenagers eventually exonerated in the Central Park jogger case.

Trump played a major role in spreading the debunked, racially charged conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. He infamously said there were “fine people on both sides” of the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

He has hosted prominent white nationalist Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago residence. He has sought to erase Black history from America’s classrooms. He’s eliminated all government diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and is trying to stop them in the private sector.

On this Juneteenth, it is important to acknowledge — both in sadness and in outrage — that the person occupying the position of president of the United States is a white supremacist.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

To remind you, here’s what Trump said on “Meet the Press” that aired on June 7:

“The [2020] election was rigged. It was a dirty election … And it’s happening again right now in California…. they’re cheating on the election. … they’re crooked…. You know that these elections are rigged. … Your elections in this country … are like a third world country. Your elections are crooked.”

When Trump lies with this kind of vehemence, does he sincerely believe what he’s saying — in which case he’s seriously demented?

OR does he know full well it’s a lie, and part of his strategy for the 2026 midterm elections is to undermine public trust in our electoral system, especially in predominantly Democratic states and cities — in which case he’s traitorous?

I think it’s both — he’s a traitor to America and he’s seriously demented — both a knave and a fool.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel know full well that the incidence of voter fraud in America is near zero. They’re playing along with Trump because, well, they’re just traitors.

***

Blanche’s Justice Department is now ramping up its investigations of supposed voter fraud across the country.

Blanche has instructed federal prosecutors to prioritize alleged voter fraud cases.

Over the last year, the Justice Department has sought voter roll data from most states; sued those that have declined to comply; opened a criminal investigation into 2020 election results in Fulton County, Georgia (Trump narrowly lost Georgia that year); subpoenaed records tied to the Arizona Senate’s review of Maricopa County voting; and demanded ballots from the 2024 race from Wayne County, Michigan.

A March 2026 order directed the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to compile state-by-state citizenship lists before federal elections; instructed the Department of Justice to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of officials and private actors involved in issuing or distributing ballots to ineligible voters; and ordered new Postal Service rules for tracking mail and absentee ballots.

Yet despite the Trump regime’s demands for voter roll data, at least eight federal district judges have rejected those demands. Half of those judges were appointed by Trump. The regime is appealing the decisions.

I used to work at the Justice Department, and, to the best of my knowledge, it has never had a 0-for-8 losing streak.

And let me remind you once again: There’s close to zero evidence of any voter fraud in America.

**

California appears to be an early testing ground for Trump’s voting fraud witch hunt.

Speaking to conservative radio host Glenn Beck recently, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, promised “[w]e will be charging some people.” The promise would have been a violation of Justice Department policy under past procedures that barred the department from involving itself in state or local elections, but Essayli has no qualms. “It will be election fraud charges in the next … one or two months, I believe. We need some of these results to be certified so we can prove some of the allegations.”

Essayli dispatched prosecutors to offices where ballots were being counted and has appealed for anyone with evidence of voter fraud to come forward, saying that “what we need right now are witnesses.”

Hello? The way justice is supposed to be served in America begins with investigations followed by allegations and then proof.

On social media, Essayli charges that California “has stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote.” He warns that his office will “not look the other way. We will investigate and prosecute,” adding that “every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out.”

Since taking over as the top prosecutor in Los Angeles, Essayli — a former Republican state assemblyman — has proven that his loyalty to Trump exceeds his fealty to the law. He has dropped cases against the president’s allies; aggressively pursued charges against protesters rallying against the administration’s immigration crackdown, only to face a string of losses; and investigated California over its policies toward transgender athletes.

**

Kash Patel’s FBI is participating in this dangerous charade.

Last Thursday, the FBI executed a search warrant at the office of an Ohio-based community grassroots group — the Ohio Organizing Collaborative — that works to register voters. Over 125 federal agents reportedly showed up at the homes of its employees and volunteers to interview them. The agents knocked on doors and demanded to come into their houses to get phones, without warrants. They followed people in their cars, even followed kids to school.

Last fall, Frank LaRose, a Republican serving as Ohio’s top election official, referred 1,084 noncitizens who appeared to have registered in the state to the Justice Department. Federal investigators have also collected voter records in at least six Ohio counties, Reuters reported in April.

Why Ohio? It’s one of the few states where a Democrat — in this case, Sherrod Brown — has a chance to flip a formerly Republican seat in the U.S. Senate.

The FBI is also probing Wisconsin. It recently attempted to interview the director of elections in Milwaukee County. Earlier this year, Minnesota’s secretary of state received grand jury subpoenas seeking some voter records as part of a federal investigation into whether noncitizens are registered to vote or have unlawfully cast ballots.

**

Trump, his suck-ups Blanche and Patel, and their army of prosecutorial lackeys such as California’s Essayli and Minnesota’s LaRose are not out to win cases against voter fraud.

Their real purpose is to create so much doubt in the minds of the American public about whether voter fraud has occurred that it becomes easier for Trump to claim — after Democrats have prevailed in the 2026 midterm elections — that they did so because they cheated. And then for Trump, Blanche, and Patel to contest those wins.

According to this scenario, Trump would declare that the election results were rigged, as he has in the past. He would assert that the results in specific jurisdictions—counties, cities, or states— should not be recognized. He would allege fraud and irregularities, illegal ballots, or foreign interference, including cyber activity.

In response, compliant federal authorities would require investigation of those results before they were finalized. The authorities would move to secure ballots, voting records, or related materials in contested jurisdictions, building on the actions the Trump regime has already taken.

While these investigations are taking place, Trump would then call on congressional leadership to proceed as if the announced results are invalid, urging the Speaker of the House to organize the chamber on the basis of a Republican majority, and encouraging similar action in the Senate, urging them to ignore any jurisdictions in which the federal government was still undertaking its review.

It’s the only real strategy Trump has left — given that his war in Iran has failed, the prices of gas and food are likely to remain elevated through the midterm elections, and most working Americans are struggling far harder than they did before Trump occupied the Oval Office.

But it’s a dangerous, cynical strategy that will further undermine public trust in our system of government.

**

What can stop them?

Governors and mayors need to get in front of this and warn voters about this treachery.

They should give voters the facts about the infinitesimal incidence of voter fraud in their states and cities, show the resources they’re using to stop voter fraud, and explain any anomalies (such as the length of time it took in California to determine the outcome of the primary elections).

Governors also should communicate clearly and early to their constituents that election results will be honored, that certification will proceed under state law, and that the rights of voters will be protected regardless of federal claims to the contrary. That kind of clarity can shape public expectations before a crisis, not after it.

Governors should decide now that they will certify results under state law and will not alter or withhold certification in response to federal claims. They can secure custody of ballots and direct state law enforcement to protect election materials. They should prepare for the possibility that federal agents will attempt to seize ballots or voting infrastructure and define in advance how state authorities will respond.

Secretaries of state should secure chain-of-custody procedures as well as physical and digital records, and prepare detailed audit documentation for immediate release. They should prepare public reporting systems that make results, audits, and underlying data rapidly accessible. Speed matters. Claims of fraud and irregularities take hold quickly; rebuttal must be quick.

State attorneys general should draft complaints now, identify jurisdictions for filing, and coordinate multi-state litigation strategies. They should prepare to challenge ballot seizures, interference with certification, emergency detentions, and federal control of election processes. They should also coordinate with local prosecutors and law enforcement to define how state criminal law applies to interference with election administration.

All this still may not be enough. Trump is a master conman. But he’s also off his rocker — and part of the response to him and his bonkers claims must also be to emphasize that he’s out of his mind as well as responsible for the havoc America now finds itself in — the failed foreign adventures and the affordability crisis — and therefore must not be trusted.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Trump again claims victory in Iran. He’s claimed victory before, but now he has a so-called “agreement” with Iran.

That agreement, which appears to be no more than a memo of understanding — that is, a set of principles to which Iran and the United States have agreed — stops the fighting and reopens the Strait of Hormuz but it does not deal with the issue that caused Trump to initiate the conflict: Iran’s nuclear program.

Keep that in mind as you hear various renditions of what’s been decided. Recall that the Strait of Hormuz was open before Trump began bombing Iran. At best, the agreement Trump is touting restores the status quo to where it was when he commenced hostilities. Remember also that Iran had agreed to limit its development of nuclear-grade materials in its treaty with the Obama administration, which Trump revoked in 2018.

So what has been accomplished? Iran now is under the control of a more extremist regime than when Trump started this war. Oil prices are far higher, and will take some time to return to where they were before it began (if they ever do). Meanwhile, Trump has caused the United States to be more dependent on fossil fuels than we were prior to his inauguration for a second time, and the high oil prices brought on by his war has enriched Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The war with Iran has cost the United States an estimated $90 billion, and that’s a conservative estimate. It has caused widespread suffering throughout the Middle East. It has put Israel in a more precarious situation than it was before — and much of that is due to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is not a party to, and has not approved, the agreement.

This doesn’t look like a victory. Compared to where the United States and the Middle East were on February 28, when Trump began this war, it’s a terrible failure.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

Tonight, Trump is throwing an 80th birthday bash for himself (he says it’s in honor of the 250th birthday of the United States) with a “Freedom250” Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match on the South Lawn of the White House at 8 p.m. ET.

It will be a bloody gladiator fight taking place inside a 600-ton, 154-feet-tall skeletal structure called “the Claw,” painted red, white and blue. Opponents will punch, kick, wrestle, choke, and use jiu-jitsu on each other until one of them is unconscious or verbally concedes, or a referee stops the fight because one is judged too damaged to absorb any more violence.

This is a money-making operation for the UFC (which is offering special-access VIP packages for $1.5 million), for Trump buddy David Ellison’s Paramount (which will livestream it to you if you buy a subscription for $8.99 a month — see here), for Crypto.com and Ram (which are sponsoring it), and for Trump (who’s deciding which of his billionaire friends and CEO buddies will be invited ringside. Last night, Trump held a $1 million-a-person dinner at the Trump National Golf Club at Potomac, Virginia, to benefit his Super PAC, Maga Inc.).

Beyond the usual Trumpian issues of self-dealing and pay-to-play corruption, today’s fight also raises the question: What does a cage match on the White House lawn have to do with America’s 250th anniversary?

Just this: Trump and his regime are seeking to project an America that’s like the winner of a cage match.

Trump sees everything and everyone in terms of dominance or submission, and he’s hellbent on dominance. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong,” he told his supporters on January 6, 2021, before urging them to go the Capitol.

He views America as locked in a zero-sum match with the rest of the world, and there’s no limit to our violence. Unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, he memorably said, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

Trump’s entire “manosphere” is obsessed with force and violence. His secretary of “war,” Pete Hegseth, threatens “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” and “maximum violence to the enemy.” When told some fishermen survived the American bombing of their boat, Hegseth reportedly ordered his commander to “kill them all.”

Trump’s secretary of health and human services frequently posts shirtless workout videos in which he’s lifting weights alongside figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kid Rock. He claims Trump has “the highest testosterone level” ever seen in an individual over 70 years old.

Trump’s whole circle — including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and JD Vance — glorify male prowess and power. (In a Twitter exchange a few years ago, Musk said he was “up for a cage fight” with Zuckerberg, who replied: “Send me location,” eliciting from Musk: “Vegas Octagon,” and the suggestion that podcaster Joe Rogan referee.) Musk and Vance champion pronatalism — the belief that the single greatest threat to Western civilization is collapsing birth rates — and argue that Western women must have more children.

Much of the Republican Party is likewise focusing on male virility. Texas Republican senatorial candidate Ken Paxton calls the Democratic candidate “low-T Talarico.”

Part of this comes directly from the fascist playbook, organized around a “strongman” touting male dominance. In that playbook, war and violence are thought means of strengthening society by culling the weak and extolling heroic warriors.

I suspect many Americans find Trump’s neofascist “strongman” attractive because they feel powerless in a society that’s left them behind. The cage match and similar public displays of aggression enable them to feel vicariously powerful.

Young men in particular — who make up a disproportionate share of Trump’s base — have been economically emasculated. Most lack college degrees at a time when such a degree is necessary (although hardly sufficient) for a decent job, and when some 60 percent of university undergraduates and 67 percent of graduate students are female.

In this way, cage matches darkly echo “The Full Monty,” the 1997 British comedy about unemployed steelworkers in Sheffield, England, who form a male striptease act to make quick cash.

But the cage match today on the White House lawn is no laughing matter. It’s deadly serious and deeply troubling.

When so many Americans are struggling to make ends meet, Trump’s gladiator fight suggests that the essence of the nation on its 250th birthday isn’t the democratic ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, nor is it the pull-yourself-up-from-the-bootstraps ambition that’s driven our economy, but zero-sum violence and male aggression.

What do you think?

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Sometimes I provide you with information that I hope you’ll find helpful in making arguments with others. I don’t expect that what I share with you will change the minds of committed Trumpers, but the facts and the evidence may have some sway with Republicans and independents who are wavering about whom to support in the midterms.

One of the main reasons Trump was elected was his pledge to keep the United States out of wars, especially the kind of “endless” wars America has fought in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Obviously, he broke that pledge. We’re now well into the fourth month of a war he said would be four or five weeks at most.

In addition, the war he initiated in Iran was a war of choice — Iran did not attack the United States, and most specialists in foreign policy say Iran was not close to devising a nuclear weapon at that time. (It’s likely to be closer now, or at least more committed to making one.)

Yet in a lengthy interview with Kristen Welker, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” which aired Sunday, Trump was once again trying to rewrite his own history, He claimed:

“I didn’t guarantee no war. So when you say I promised, I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months.”

In fact, Trump repeatedly and unequivocally promised during the 2024 election campaign that the U.S. would not have any wars during his second presidency.

Herewith, some examples.

In a June 2024 social media post, Trump described the election as “a choice between STRENGTH or WEAKNESS, COMPETENCE or INCOMPETENCE, peace and prosperity or war and no war.”

In one of the highest-profile speeches of his campaign — his July 2024 address to the Republican National Convention — he said, “With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over. I don’t have wars.”

He made the promise again and even more directly during an August 2024 rally in the swing state of Pennsylvania, saying: “Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all.”

Trump reprised the same pledge in an August 2024 interview with Adin Ross, an online personality. After saying there were no wars during his first administration, he promised, “And we won’t have wars again.”

At another rally that month in the hotly contested state of North Carolina, Trump approvingly cited Viktor Orbán, then the prime minister of Hungary, as supposedly having said, “Make sure that Trump gets reelected president, and you’re not going to have any more wars.” Trump reiterated moments later, “No more wars. No more disruptions. We will have prosperity, and we will have peace.”

Trump told versions of the Orbán story at numerous other events. For example, in the swing state of Wisconsin in October 2024, he said, “Viktor Orbán said, ‘If Trump comes back, you won’t have any wars. You won’t have any wars.’ And he’s about as tough as they get, and he said it loud and clear and he said why. But you won’t have any wars.”

Finally, in his victory address in November 2024, Trump made a clear promise that he would not start a war — even when he no longer had to persuade voters to elect him. He said in that high-profile speech: “Four years, we had no wars, except we defeated ISIS. … They said, ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.”

In reality, of course, Trump has been one of the most bellicose presidents in modern American history.

His failing war in Iran and his campaign pledge not to start any wars should be held against Republicans in the House and Senate. They’re partly responsible. They have repeatedly refused to stop his wars. They have repeatedly enabled his aggression.

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

The trustees of the Social Security fund said Tuesday that the fund will be depleted by late 2032, a year earlier than the trustees’ projection last year of 2033. If nothing is done, benefits will automatically be cut six years from now.

The common understanding is that Social Security’s shortfall is due to the huge postwar baby boom, now retiring, and to America’s increasing life expectancy. The usual recommended fix is to reduce Social Security benefits or raise the age of eligibility. As Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, warned Monday, “entitlement programs” like Social Security “have to be adjusted and fixed.” He said Republicans will introduce a plan to do that. Brace yourselves.

I used to be a Social Security trustee, and I call bull ----

The baby boom can’t be blamed for Social Security’s shortfall. The Greenspan Commission, which in 1983 recommended the reforms that Congress then made — raising Social Security payroll taxes and also raising the eligibility age for collecting Social Security benefits — knew all about the baby boom and figured it into its calculations. (Early boomers like me can now start collecting full benefits at age 66; late boomers born after 1960 have to wait until they’re 67 to collect full benefits.)

Americans’ increasing life expectancy isn’t at fault, either. While wealthier Americans are living longer, that’s not the case for lower-income Americans. The Urban Institute estimates that life expectancy in the top 20 percent of income-earners is 91 years for people born in the 1990s, four years more than people born in the 1950s. Yet the life expectancy in the lowest 20 percent of income-earners is fewer than 80 years.

So what’s the real cause of the Social Security shortfall? What did Greenspan’s commission fail to predict? Widening inequality.

Remember, the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain cap. This year, that cap is $184,500. Earnings at or below this amount are taxed at 12.4 percent. The cap rises every year according to a formula roughly matching inflation.

Back in 1983, the cap was set so the Social Security payroll tax would hit 90 percent of total income in America. That 90 percent figure was built into the Greenspan Commission’s fixes. The Greenspan commission assumed that, as the cap rose with inflation, the Social Security payroll tax would continue to hit 90 percent of total income.

Today, though, the Social Security payroll tax hits only about 83 percent of total income in America. It went from 90 percent to 83 percent because a steadily larger portion of the nation’s total income has gone to the top.

In 1983, the richest 1 percent of Americans got 11.6 percent of total income. Today, the top 1 percent takes in more than 20 percent.

This year, someone earning $1 million in wages stopped paying any Social Security payroll tax at the beginning of March. Jeff Bezos probably stopped a few minutes past midnight on January 1. Elon Musk, a few seconds after midnight on January 1. (In point of fact, Bezos, Musk, and other robber barons of this Second Gilded Age get all the cash they need by borrowing against their fortunes, rather than bother with pesky wages, so they probably pay a pittance in Social Security taxes.)

Logically, then, to get back to 90 percent, the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax has to be raised.

If all income in excess of $400,000 were subject to the Social Security payroll tax, Social Security’s solvency would be guaranteed forever. We could also expand Social Security benefits.

So there’s no reason even to consider reducing Social Security benefits or raising the age of eligibility. The logical and necessary response is simply to raise the cap, Mike Johnson and other Republican shills for the oligarchs to the contrary notwithstanding.

---

Social Security is America’s most effective anti-poverty program. Last year, it lifted 23.5 million Americans out of poverty, including 16.5 million seniors. Before its creation, about half of our nation’s seniors were living in poverty. Today their poverty rate is just 10.3 percent. Without Social Security, nearly 4 in 10 seniors would have had incomes below the official poverty line.

Hollowing out of private pensions makes Social Security all the more important. One in 5 Americans 50 and older have zero retirement savings. Meanwhile, the average Social Security benefit at the start of last year was $1,975 a month ($23,700 annually).

Social Security is also the federal government’s biggest children’s benefit program through its disability and survivors’ benefits. In 2024, 1.7 million children received Social Security benefits, and the vast majority are eligible to receive survivors’ benefits if a parent were to pass away. Additionally, millions more children are part of a household where all or part of the household income comes from Social Security. Social Security is estimated to lift close to 1 million children out of poverty each year.

Other fixes that have been introduced in Congress:

1. The Social Security Expansion Act

Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have introduced this plan for several Congresses. (It is cosponsored by Budget Committee Members Merkley, Whitehouse, Van Hollen, and Padilla.)

The bill imposes Social Security taxes on wages above $250,000 and applies the same 12.4 percent rate to capital gains and business income. That would boost benefits for almost all retirees by $200 per month, using a more generous measure of inflation to calculate the cost-of-living increase, and setting a minimum benefit at 125 percent of poverty. When estimated in 2023, it achieved 75-year Social Security solvency solely by increasing taxes on incomes above $250,000.

2. Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act

Sen. Whitehouse and Rep. Boyle introduced this bill starting in the last Congress. Budget Committee Member Van Hollen is a co-sponsor. It adopts the tax increases of the Sanders bill, adjusted to start at $400,000. The bill has no benefit increases, so it significantly overshoots solvency, and there would be extra revenue. The bill achieves 75-year solvency for both Social Security and the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

I’ve been watching JD Vance as carefully as anyone can track a snake in the grass, which is to say, with some difficulty. He has seemed uncomfortable with Trump’s grandiose foreign ambitions, especially Trump’s failed war in Iran, but I’ve seen no evidence that JD has spoken out against any of it even inside Trump’s ego-echo chamber.

JD hasn’t carved out a regressive policy specialty for himself, as have some other of Trump’s despicable underlings such as Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, and Harmeet Dhillon.

Nor has JD become much of a spokesperson for Trump. He rarely appears on television or even on social media. Nor has he been visible on Capitol Hill. He hasn’t cinched any deal in Congress.

JD seems to appear when and where a vice president is supposed to, but then disappears again into the daily effluence of Trump.

But there’s one particular area where JD seems to stand out (I was tempted to write “excel,” but it’s impossible to excel at something as execrable as JD’s specialty.) He is the regime’s strangest bigot.

Among all the bigots in the Trump regime — and there are many — JD’s bigotry stands out for a particular lunacy, combining magic realism with a unique ultra-wackiness.

We saw glimmers of this during the 2024 campaign when JD, then a U.S. senator from Ohio, insisted that the pets of upright Americans residing in Springfield, Ohio, were being “abducted and eaten” by Haitian immigrants “who shouldn’t be in this country.”

Despite being informed by city officials that Haitian immigrants were not in fact eating pets, Vance doubled down. He was sure Haitians were eating people’s pets. The publicity surrounding JD’s bizarre claims led to threats against Springfield’s Haitian community.

Not to let a disgusting lie about a minority group go unexploited, Trump amplified Vance’s pet-eating claim during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

Finally confronted by irrefutable evidence that Haitian immigrants were not eating pets in Springfield, Vance admitted publicly that he was speaking, shall we say, metaphorically: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he told CNN.

Hello?

Now, JD is back.

“Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit,” JD declared on X last week. Nowak would still be alive “if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

If you’ve followed this sad story, you know that an 18-year-old British student named Henry Nowak was fatally stabbed in the British city of Southampton in December by Vickrum Digwa, who falsely claimed Nowak had racially abused him and that Digwa had acted in self-defense. After the truth came out, Digwa was jailed for life on June 1, with a minimum term of 21 years.

That, in turn, prompted JD’s jeremiad against “mass invasion of migrants.”

But inconveniently for JD, Digwa was born and raised in Britain. Which puts JD’s blaming Nowak’s death on a “mass invasion of migrants” roughly on par with his claims about the eating habits of Haitian-Americans in Springfield.

This hasn’t stopped JD, of course, who’s using the Nowak murder to bolster his narrative of Britain as a “once powerful nation” whose elites are now welcoming “migrants” who “despise the West.”

JD has become a mouthpiece inside the Trump regime for assailing what JD repeatedly terms the “decline of Western civilization,” especially in Europe. It’s part of the Trump regime’s increasingly shrill critique of Europe. Trump’s most recent National Security Strategy promises to push “Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

In a sense, then, JD has stepped into the bigoted shoes of Viktor Orbán; Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing populist Reform UK party; and other resurgent European white Christian nationalists.

But there’s something more to this. JD wants to be the leader of the world’s anti-democracy movement.

Recall that JD would never have become a senator from Ohio in 2022 were it not for the billionaire tech financier Peter Thiel, who staked $15 million on JD’s election — a major portion of all the funds that went into JD’s Senate race.

Thiel knew what he was buying. Before running for the Senate, JD had worked for Thiel’s California venture capital firm and was part of Thiel’s libertarian community of rich crypto bros, tech executives, back-to-the-landers, and disaffected far-right intellectuals.

Because Thiel had been a major funder of Trump’s 2016 presidential run, he had significant influence with Trump when urging him to pick JD for his vice president.

Thiel was such a strong sponsor of JD because Thiel saw in his protege a future leader of a political movement to turn the U.S. away from democracy. “For Peter,” said one of the people familiar with his thinking, “Vance is a generational bet.”

Thiel is a self-styled libertarian who once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Hello? Freedom is incompatible with democracy only if you view democracy as a potential constraint on your wealth and power.

That’s the point. Thiel and JD — along with Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, tech entrepreneur David Sacks, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg, Sequoia Capital’s Doug Leone, blogger Curtis Yarvin, and others in the anti-democracy movement — believe that the only way true libertarians can win in the U.S. is for a Caesar-like figure to wrest power from the U.S. establishment and install a monarchical regime, run like a startup.

Yarvin — who’s something of a thinker behind this movement — has written that real political power in the United States is held by a liberal amalgam of universities and the mainstream press, whose commitment to equality and justice is eroding social order.

In Yarvin’s view, democratic governments should be replaced with sovereign joint-stock corporations whose major “shareholders” select an executive with total power, who serves at their pleasure. Yarvin refers to the city-state of Singapore as an example of a successful authoritarian regime.

How to achieve Yarvin’s vision? The first step, as JD offered in a 2021 podcast, is to replace “every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state … with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country, and say” — as did Andrew Jackson — that “the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

The next step, apparently, is to foment so much division and bigotry inside the U.S. and within every other major Western nation that people come to view those on the other side of the political divide as the source of everything that’s wrong with their lives. That way, they won’t look upward to see Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and the other billionaire robber barons, plutocrats, and oligarchs of this second Gilded Age grabbing most of the wealth and power for themselves.

And average people will trade in democracy for strongman autocracy.

Behind JD’s bloopers about Haitian-Americans and British “migrants” is a deadly serious plan to unite the far-rights of America and Europe and rid much of the world of democracy. If JD ever becomes president, he’s intent on finishing the job.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

Let me get right to the point. The Senate should not confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general.

Blanche, who used to be Trump’s private lawyer, has treated the Justice Department as Trump’s private law firm. He still believes that Trump — rather than the United States — is his client.

At the very least, the Senate should insist, as a condition of confirming Blanche, that the May 19 deal Blanche devised to immunize Trump and his family from all future prosecutions — which Blanche alone signed — be nullified.

The purpose of that immunity deal — which resulted from Trump’s own bizarre lawsuit against the IRS — should by now be clear. It’s to prevent any future government inquiry into the corrupt dealings of Trump and his family.

The breadth of the so-called “settlement” agreement between Trump and, well, Trump is staggering. Take a look at it, here.

Boiled down to its bare essentials, the deal “forever” protects Trump and his family from “all claims” or “causes of action” or “requests for any relief” including “examinations” that “could have been” asserted by the United States against Trump, his children, “or affiliated individuals” or “parties” which arise out of “any matters” or of “Lawfare and/or Weaponization” or of any matters that “could be pending” before the United States or its agencies and departments.

Put another way, the U.S. government is prohibited from looking into any of the corrupt s--- Trump or his family have gotten into.

And there’s a lot of corrupt s---.

Trump is the most corrupt president in American history. Since being in office for a second time, he’s so far increased his wealth by an estimated $4 billion, and his sons’ and daughters’ wealth by billions more. Some examples:

• Trump and his family have created multiple crypto businesses — World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP meme coin — that have received favorable deregulatory treatment and reportedly generated at least $2.3 billion in income for Trump and his family since he won the presidency.

• Six days after a company backed by Eric and Donald Jr. took a 20 percent stake in an American mining group, the group’s parent company received $1.6 billion in federal financing. That’s because the president of Kazakhstan granted the company the right to mine the world’s largest known undeveloped deposit of tungsten, an element used in semiconductors, lightbulbs, and warheads.
• In late 2025, Don Jr.’s firm 1789 Capital acquired an equity stake in critical minerals company Vulcan Elements. Shortly after, the White House and the Pentagon awarded Vulcan a $620 million federal loan without competitive procurement or independent technical review.
• After Eric and Don Jr. backed the drone manufacturer Powerus, the U.S. Air Force awarded the company a lucrative contract.
• Eric and Don Jr. have conducted numerous undisclosed meetings with foreign government officials (including representatives from Hungary, the UK, Vietnam, and Qatar) while simultaneously negotiating global real estate deals for the Trump Organization.
• Don Jr. serves as a strategic advisor or investor in prediction market firms Kalshi and Polymarket, which have received favorable, deregulatory treatment from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
• Don Jr. is on the board of prescription drug platform BlinkRX, which will benefit from the administration’s promotion of direct-to-patient medicine sales.
• Presumably, someone has made a fortune trading stocks and bonds on the basis of insider knowledge of decisions that Trump would announce — about tariffs, his war in Iran, and other news that moved stock and bond markets. The trades occurred just before the announcements.
• In May, Trump disclosed that his trust was actively trading individual stocks, an unprecedented practice for a sitting U.S. president in the modern era.
• Trump has pardoned some of the most brazen financial criminals in American history, and one can only wonder what he received in return. They include Philip Esformes, convicted in what Trump’s own Department of Justice described as the “largest health care fraud scheme ever charged”; Joseph Schwartz, convicted for a $38 million fraud scheme; and reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, convicted for multimillion-dollar bank fraud. He’s granted clemency to Lawrence Duran after a $205 million fraud conviction. He commuted Jason Galanis’s sentence and pardoned Devon Archer, both tied to tens of millions in fraud.

If the “settlement” remains in force, we will never know the details of any of these transactions, because the “settlement” — devised and signed by Todd Blanche — will result in the largest cover-up of presidential wrongdoing and illegality in American history.

Without it, Trump and his family could be required to disgorge their ill-gotten gains.

For his role in this scam, Blanche should not be confirmed as attorney general. At the very least, his confirmation should be conditioned on this so-called “settlement” being deemed null and void.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Yesterday I asked a group of eight specialists who have closely watched Trump over the years — two clinical psychologists, a psychiatrist, two medical doctors, and three political advisers — about their reactions to Trump’s interview that aired on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.”

Here’s the part of the interview I asked them to focus on. For those of you who missed it, click to see it.

Today’s Office Hours discussion will focus on what, if anything, this interview reveals about Trump at this point in his second term.

The views expressed by my panel of medical and political experts were thoughtful and nuanced. For the sake of discussion, I’ve grouped them into the following categories:

1. Trump’s behavior was normal for Trump

Several of them said they had seen Trump behave similarly before, so it was normal behavior for Trump. They cited examples of interviews he’s done — both in recent months and also in his first term — in which he was equally angry, defensive, and dismissive. He has walked out of interviews before. They also noted that this was a particularly stressful situation because Trump was facing a national audience and may have had difficulty concentrating because of the rain.

2. Trump is planting the seeds of his strategy for discrediting the midterms.

The political advisers saw in Trump’s baseless assertion that the California election was rigged and his rehash of his lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him as intentionally sowing the seeds of doubt about the fairness of elections in Democratic cities and states. They thought this will be part of his strategy for discrediting the results of the midterms — which Democrats are likely to win. (A Justice Department official says “multiple” probes of California’s elections are now underway, following Trump’s claims.)

3. Trump is showing signs of dementia.

A fourth view is that Trump is displaying clear signs of dementia. During the interview, he had obvious difficulty following a train of thought, recalling factual details, maintaining normal reasoning (even for him), and controlling his emotions. He also displayed paranoia. Even considering the rain and the stressful situation — and even relative to the normal baseline for Trump — he showed early signs of mental decline. “He’s losing it,” said one of the psychologists I consulted with.

Hence, today’s Office Hours question: What do you think Trump reveals about himself in this interview?

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Bari Weiss was hired by CBS to be editor-in-chief of CBS News in October 2025, when Paramount Skydance acquired CBS.

Weiss had no television-news experience. She was a New York Times Opinion staffer and founder of The Free Press.

In May, Weiss made Nick Bilton the new executive producer of “60 Minutes.” He has no television experience. He has no management experience, either.

I remember when CBS News was the most admired news organization in America — home to Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow. They spoke truth to power. Cronkite had the guts to challenge Lyndon Johnson’s war in Vietnam. Murrow had the guts to expose Joe McCarthy and his communist witch hunt.

Now, CBS News is a disgraced shell of a news organization that last week fired famed “60 Minutes” senior correspondent Scott Pelley, after gutting most of the rest of its team.

Pelley says Weiss repeatedly interfered in stories “60 Minutes” sought to run. When, for example, the show did a piece on the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Weiss wanted to make “the protesters look more violent,” and to describe Good “as driving toward the officer,” when videos show her driving away from him.

Pelley concluded that Weiss was trying to put “a thumb on the scale for the President’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News. … a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration. Constantly looking out for the views of the President.”

Why was Weiss doing this? Presumably because her boss, David Ellison, wants to s--- up to Trump, and hired Weiss to help him — and she hired Bilton to aid her in doing so. And she fired other staff because they wouldn’t.

Trump, meanwhile, has chosen Bill Pulte to be acting director of national intelligence. Pulte has no background in national security. He was head of Trump’s federal housing agency. His entire professional experience before that was at companies tied to his family’s wealth.

Trump chose Pulte not because he knows anything about intelligence but because of his eagerness to advance Trump’s political revenge campaign. He used his housing office to attack Trump’s enemies, leveling accusations of mortgage fraud against people Trump considers political enemies — Letitia James, Senator Adam Schiff, and Lisa Cook, a Fed governor Trump has sought to fire.

Trump has also chosen Todd Blanche to be Attorney General. Blanche’s qualifications? As acting Attorney General, Blanche oversaw the Justice Department’s indictment of former F.B.I. director James B. Comey over a photo he posted on Instagram in May 2025 of seashells on a beach that spelled out “86 47,” which the department characterized as a threat to the president.

It was the second attempt by Trump’s Justice Department to prosecute Comey, against whom Trump has vowed retribution for Comey’s alleged disloyalty to Trump during Trump’s first administration — when Comey said Trump pressured him to drop the investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, publicly refuted Trump’s allegations that the Obama administration had wiretapped Trump, and publicly challenged Trump’s narrative regarding the Russia probe.

Before becoming Pam Bondi’s attack dog at the Justice Department, Blanche was one of Trump’s personal lawyers.

Speaking of no relevant experience, I can’t resist pointing out that Lindsey Halligan, who Trump appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had been a White House aide with no experience as a federal prosecutor before she was appointed. Halligan was tasked by Trump with prosecuting James Comey and Letitia James, after her predecessors as U.S. Attorney — Erik Siebert and Todd Gilbert — refused to do it. The ploy didn’t work. The federal courts threw out both indictments.

I could go on — Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — but you get the point. Under Trump, experience, knowledge, and talent are irrelevant. The only criterion for getting a top job is blind loyalty to Trump.

But now this poison has also leached into the private sector, in vital places such as CBS and CBS News — places where people used to be hired for their experience, knowledge, and talent. Now they’re hired for their willingness to sacrifice their integrity to s--- up to Trump.

This is how dictators poison the organizations a free society depends on. Trump is destroying CBS News by putting s---ups David Ellison and Bari Weiss in charge, just as he’s destroying the Department of Justice and the Office of National Intelligence by putting s---ups Todd Blanche and Bill Pulte in charge.

Sadly, a dictator will always be able to find people whose blind ambition exceeds their integrity.

But you and I don’t have to accept any of this.

We can boycott CBS News and its sponsors.

And we can do everything within our power to get out the vote in the midterm elections whose mail-in ballots start in four months, and put responsible people in charge of Congress who have the courage to stand up to the dictator.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

I detest him and everything he does or says. Ditto his despicable aides and Cabinet members, his unprincipled sycophants and suck-ups.

But it’s possible that someday we’ll look back on this horrendous era and say we needed Trump. We needed to see how horrible it could get before America was able to revive its ideals.

Please hear me out.

Even before Trump, we were barreling down the wrong road. Inequalities of income, wealth, and opportunity were worsening. Legalized bribery was soaring in the form of mounting campaign contributions from big corporations and the wealthy. Workers were getting shafted. On Wall Street and in C-suites, fealty to the rule of law was giving way to “greed is good” selfishness. Giant corporations were monopolizing ever more of the economy. America was losing its moral authority in the world (think Abu Ghraib and the torture memo).

We couldn’t have remained on that road. Even if we didn’t know it then, most of us understand that now. Trump has opened our eyes to the consequences of extreme greed, corruption, cruelty, and utter disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law. His brazenness and shamelessness have awakened us to much that we took for granted.

He and his regime are still dangerous as hell, of course. But the American public is catching on. His polls are in the cellar; they continue to fall.

It’s as if the nation has been through basic training in democracy, a stress test in civics, a crash course in the importance of having a decent and good government.

Before Trump, how many Americans understood the importance of “checks and balances” among the three branches of government, as envisioned by the Founders?

Now nearly everyone knows, because we’ve seen what happens when the head of the executive branch usurps the power of Congress and defies the federal courts.

How many of us really knew what “due process” meant when it came to giving people accused by the government an opportunity to defend themselves?

By now most of us have seen videos of people dragged out of their homes in the dead of night by masked agents of the U.S. government and thrown into detention camps without so much as a hearing. And we’ve seen government agents murder American citizens in cold blood on the streets of our cities.

Did we understand the meaning of corruption, bribes, self-dealing, and pay-to-play before Trump extorted corporations and billionaires to contribute millions to his campaign, his PAC, his inauguration, his ballroom, and his 250th birthday party? Now, we surely do.

Did we really know the importance of professional civil servants before Trump fired tens of thousands of them and substituted brainless loyalists? Before he got rid of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because it published truthful jobs data he didn’t like?

Did we understand the importance of expertise before Trump turned his back on career diplomats at the State Department, doctors and epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control, and experienced lawyers at the Justice Department and replaced them with loyalist hacks?

Or the meaning of “equal justice under the law” before Trump turned the Justice Department into his own private law firm to prosecute political enemies and pardon supporters?

Did we comprehend the true meaning of freedom of speech and expression before Trump attacked our universities for allowing demonstrations he disliked? Before he got CBS to fire Stephen Colbert for satirizing him and muzzle “60 Minutes” for criticizing him?

Did we know the dangers of oligarchy before Trump authorized Elon Musk to destroy entire federal agencies? Before Trump suck-up Jeff Bezos prohibited the editorial board of The Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris? Before Trump turned over to Larry and David Ellison much of how Americans learn what’s going on — CBS’s broadcast network, its news division, and over 28 local television stations, as well as CNN, TikTok, Comedy Central, Discovery, HBO and HBO Max, and Warner Bros. Studios?

Did we understand the importance of the federal government keeping us safe and healthy before Trump eviscerated health and safety regulations? Before he decimated the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control, and much of the Department of Health and Human Services? Before he authorized a crackpot with no medical background who opposes vaccines to run the world’s largest and most powerful health agency?

Did we understand why the Federal Reserve needs to be independent of politics? Did we know why the Federal Trade Commission needs to crack down against monopolies? Did we appreciate why the National Labor Relations Board must protect workers’ rights to form unions?

I venture to say, in answer to all of these questions: No, we did not know.

Now, most of us do.

It’s a terrible time. I share your sadness, anger, and fear. But prior to this daymare, too many of us had fallen asleep at the wheel. We had let America barrel down a road that was compromising too many of the ideals we hold in common.

Maybe we needed this horrific wakeup call in order to get back on the road we should have been on. We needed to see how fragile the institutions of self-government are in order to know why we must strengthen them. We needed to be reminded of what America is all about — what it should be about — in order to revive it — and reclaim it, for and by the people.

We will use what we’ve learned. We will fight for a stronger democracy. We’ll demand equal justice and the rule of law. We’ll commit ourselves to the common good. And we will assign Trump and his regime to the dustbin of history.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

Trump is trying to rig the midterms because he’s scared. And because Trump’s scared, he’s trying to scare Americans with an imaginary boogeyman: so-called “voter fraud.”

Here’s the truth: Every study shows voter fraud, including noncitizen voting, is so rare that a person is more likely to get struck by lightning than to cast a fraudulent ballot.

But Trump’s using this boogeyman to sabotage our elections. Here are three things I’m worried about — then I’ll tell you how we fight back.

#1 New voting restrictions

Trump is pushing for strict voter registration laws (the so-called “Save America Act”) that would require eligible voters to prove their citizenship. But a state ID or driver’s license won’t do. Voters would need to show either a current passport or a certified birth certificate from the state they were born in to register.

Yet, more than 21 million Americans cannot easily provide those documents, either because they simply don’t have them or they can’t afford to get them. (Do you know where your birth certificate is?)

And even if you do have it, about 80% of married women and 30% of trans people have legal names that don’t match the name on their birth certificates — which makes it even harder to register.

Trump isn’t stopping there; he also wants to restrict mail-in voting, despite frequently voting by mail himself.

Trump’s hypocrisy would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. Some 45 million votes were cast by mail in the 2024 general election (which he won, and doesn’t say was rigged, by the way). Restricting mail-in voting, along with instituting harsh voter ID laws, is blatant voter suppression.

#2 Voter intimidation

Trump insiders say he might deploy armed ICE or Border Patrol agents to polling sites.

Trump’s violent ICE agents have run rampant in our streets, abusing both noncitizens and citizens alike. The presence of armed agents of the state at polling places would almost certainly have a chilling effect on voter turnout — which is exactly what Trump wants.

#3 Denying election results

Trump’s latest big lie is that any Democratic victory is illegitimate.

What if Republicans lose the midterms but follow Trump’s 2020 example and try to hold onto power? A few years ago, this would have been unthinkable. But after what Trump tried doing in 2020, it’s frighteningly plausible.

The bottom line is Trump is deeply unpopular, which is why he is trying to suppress the vote.

But here is how we can fight back.

1. Press your state and local leaders to protect our elections right now. Your state attorney general and local election officials still have authority over our voting system. Urge them to develop a plan to protect our elections. Call on them to sue the Trump administration if it tries to seize ballots. Tell your state legislature to ban armed federal agents from polling places, like New Mexico just did.

2. Second, VOTE — and help turn out the vote! We need to show up in such large numbers that no amount of voter suppression can change the result. Go to vote.org right now and check your registration. Then reach out to three friends and make sure they are registered to show up.

3. Lastly, SOUND THE ALARM. Share the video I’ve posted above, which I made with the talented team at Inequality Media Civic Action. Help spread the word that the boogeyman of voter fraud is just a cover for Trump’s election sabotage.

Trump’s strategy to sabotage the election depends on fear, confusion, and division.

We must respond by being brave, focused, and united.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

If you hadn’t noticed, Trump is failing.

Iran is more dangerous today than it was when went to war on it, and energy prices are far higher.

Trump’s brutal efforts to crackdown on undocumented people in the United States have generated a huge backlash, including among Latinos who voted for him in 2024 but are moving into the Democratic camp.

His attempt to cover up the Epstein files continues to rankle MAGA voters.

His $1.8 billion “slush” fund and family immunization from future IRS audits, in “settlement” of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, has drawn widespread bipartisan scorn and hit judicial roadblocks.

I could go on, but you get the point. Trump’s failures are mounting.

Why?

I’ve worked for three presidents and advised a fourth. All of them solicited honest feedback, including criticism.

Trump solicits only praise. He relishes compliments. He needs everyone around him to pander to his egomaniacal need for admiration. He punishes the bearers of bad news.

He promotes people who kiss his assets, such as Bill Pulte, the home-building heir Trump put in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and who Trump is now making acting director of national intelligence.

And Todd Blanche, the lawyer who represented him in his multiple lawsuits and who Trump now wants to become Attorney General.

Pulte, with no known experience in national security, got the job because he told Trump what Trump wanted to hear. He weaponized the housing agency and tried to dig up dirt on Trump enemies — specifically, the Fed’s Lisa Cook, Senator Adam Schiff, and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

As the person in charge of national intelligence, Pulte will continue to tell Trump whatever he wants to hear. Trump won’t get national intelligence; he’ll get national stupidity.

Trump has so many people “he could be listening to,” said a former Trump official, “and he listens to Pulte, who just continually f---- things up.”

Blanche got the nod for Attorney General because he went even further than his predecessor, Pam Bondi, was willing to go in throwing integrity and principles odown the toilet in favor of going after Trump’s enemies. He secured a second felony indictment against the former FBI Director James Comey, alleging Comey threatened Trump ia a social media post that arranged seashells to spell “86 47.” Blanche also commenced a bonkers criminal investigation of Fed chief Jerome Powell, and tried to establish a $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump as well as immunity from I.R.S. audits as a fake “settlement” of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S.

So how does Trump make decisions if he doesn’t have people telling him the truth?

He relies, he has said, on his gut. “My gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.” He told The Washington Post that he reaches decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already have], plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have a lot of common sense.”

In other words, he doesn’t listen to anyone — especially not anyone who tells him anything he doesn’t want to hear.

Presto. He makes colossal mistakes.

Even normal people don’t like to get negative feedback. And most people don’t want to give it.

Yet receiving and giving truthful feedback are absolutely essential in a complex world.

If you have power over other people, it’s even more important to get negative feedback, because your mistakes could harm many others. Yet the more power you have, the less willing people are to give you negative feedback, since they have more reason to fear your reaction to it. Which means you have to go out of your way to solicit it.

The best leaders I’ve had the privilege of serving during my nearly 60 years of working life have been people who have actively sought and rewarded negative feedback.

Trump does just the opposite. Small wonder he’s one of the worst leaders the nation has ever endured.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

No, he’s not over over. I wish he were. But something important has changed.

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to direct him to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran or win approval from Congress to continue the war. It was a remarkable rebuke. Four Republicans sided with Democrats.

His “short-term excursion” into Iran, which he promised in late February would last no more than “four to five weeks,” has now entered its fourth month, with no end in sight. His claim to have “destroyed” Iran’s missiles and drones is belied by Iran’s massive attack on Kuwait on Tuesday. Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz. Its highly enriched uranium remains hidden. Even MAGAs have had enough of his forever war.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are rebelling. They’ve forced Trump to abandon the $1 billion request for his gilded ballroom, which was becoming ever more grotesque as Americans struggle to make ends meets.

His $1.8 billion Thug Fund is also dead, largely because a significant number of previously gutless Republicans (including — gasp! — Lindsey Graham) pushed back.

Trump’s name is coming off the Kennedy Center because a federal judge ordered it off and no Republicans came to his defense.

Even Trump’s endorsement is losing its magic. On Tuesday, Iowa voters rejected Trump’s choice for governor, Randy Feenstra, whom Trump called “MAGA all the way.” It was Trump’s first major endorsement loss.

And even with Stephen Colbert off the air, Trump has become a bigger late-night joke than ever. All the entertainers — even the B- and C-list also-rans desperate for exposure — dropped out of his 250th anniversary ego trip. So he’s going to be the headliner in a four-hour Fidel Castro speech. Good luck with that.

His Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the White House’s South Lawn has become a one-liner. To attend, military members have to pay their way to Washington and cannot have a waist size more than 55 percent of their height. (“No Fatties at UFC White House Event,” declared a Facebook page.) We’ll see how many show up.

As if all this weren’t enough, he’s nominated an unqualified sycophantic MAGA mortgage clown to be the director of national intelligence — an action so absurd that even Mitch McConnell had to object: “Anyone performing this role of such immense public trust must have the extensive national security experience required by statute, and no nominee who falls short of this requirement will earn my vote.” Get ready for a circus of a Senate confirmation fight.

No, Trump’s not done. He’ll continue to torment us with his cruelty, corruption, and criminality for some time, so we have to keep fighting.

But his power is disappearing. He’s become a lame duck whose quack no longer causes anyone to quake.

He has no one to blame but himself. His hubris finally reached its own breaking point.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

What does Trump do when facing a humiliating defeat? He closes everything down. If that doesn’t work, he dumps it entirely and criticizes the hell out of whoever’s then in charge. Call it the Trump dump.

He did this in the 2020 election — refusing to accept defeat and then trying to close it all down by instigating an attack on the U.S. Capitol. When that didn’t work, he spent the next four years blaming Biden for everything.

When performers scheduled to appear at the Kennedy Center canceled in protest of Trump’s taking over the center and putting his name on it, Trump closed the center, with the lame excuse that he was “renovating” it.

Then, Friday, after a federal court ordered him to reopen the center and remove his name, he announced, “I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,” followed by: “The Kennedy Center will soon be closed, probably never to open again” and “the Kennedy Center will collapse, both structurally and financially.”

A similar Trump dump occurred over the weekend after artists pulled out of his 250th anniversary concert series on the mall when they discovered that the series was a promotional vehicle for Trump. In response, he said he was canceling the series and replacing it with a Trump rally.

Trump is pulling a nearly identical — and far more serious — Tump dump in Iran. In mid-April, rather than accept Iran’s humiliating blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, he pretended he was in charge and that he’d close the strait. So he ordered a naval blockade, which did nothing but maintain the status quo.

Last Friday, when Iran signaled it might be willing to reopen the strait on its own terms (by charging tolls), Trump once again acted as if he were in charge, announcing that he’d be making a “final determination” on a potential deal that “must see the strait reopened, and then Iran must work with the U.S. to have its highly enriched uranium DESTROYED.”

Now that Iran is reportedly breaking off talks with the Trump administration and seeking “complete closure” of the Strait of Hormuz because of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, we can expect an even larger Trump dump.

What might this one look like? One likelihood: Trump takes credit for brokering a shaky peace deal between Iran and Israel over Lebanon’s Hezbollah, while blaming critics inside the U.S. for imperiling his peace talks with Iran. He announces he’s ending the ceasefire — which ended over the weekend anyway, with the U.S. military striking Iranian radar and drone sites near the Strait of Hormuz — and that “he’s finished with negotiations!” He then claims he’s done. He’s destroyed Iran’s military and killed off its old regime and warns that if Iran doesn’t open the strait and give up its nuclear program, he’ll resume bombing. It’s up to them.

In effect, he leaves the problem of reopening the strait to other countries more dependent on oil shipped through it, such as China, and the problem of taming Iran’s nuclear ambitions to Israel. It’s the final Trump dump.

We’ll see.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

In light of my post yesterday about Trump’s plans for a Trump rally on the mall to celebrate the start of America’s 250th birthday festivities — designed, in his words, for “patriots” and promising to be “wild” — several of you wanted to know more about how it’s being planned and paid for.

This year’s 250th anniversary events, commemorating America’s founders’ refusal to be bound by a tyrant, were supposed to be planned by a nonpartisan, nonprofit group created by Congress in 2016 via a bipartisan congressional caucus of more than 350 members.

That nonpartisan, nonprofit group is called “America250.”

“America250” still exists, at least in theory. It lists as Honorary National Co-Chairs George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama. Its ex-officio members include present and former government officials drawn from both parties. You can read more about it at the “Official website of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission,” here.

But “America250” is not planning this year’s 250th anniversary events on the mall or anywhere else in official Washington. Trump and his MAGA allies circumvented Congress and created their own planning committee, confusingly named “Freedom 250.”

Trump’s “Freedom 250” describes itself in much the same way “America250” does — as a “non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation’s 250th birthday.” See here.

But unlike “America250,” Trump’s “Freedom 250” is bankrolling events promoting Trump and his political agenda (which is why most of the performing artists who originally agreed to participate dropped out last week when they learned of the ruse).

The “Freedom 250 toolkit” lists as its “core theme” elevating “President Trump’s Freedom 250 vision” — boosting Trump’s supposed achievements and not his many failures (such as two impeachments, criminal conviction on 34 felony charges, attempted coup against the United States, incitement of an attack on the U.S. Capitol, disastrous war in Iran, etc.) — analogous to Trump’s executive order requiring that the Smithsonian remove details about his impeachments from museum exhibits.

Not surprisingly, Trump’s “Freedom 250” is also designed to make money for Trump. Trump’s personal business is now trademarking the term “Trump 250,” along with a logo nearly identical to America250’s logo.

The Trump Organization has filed several trademark applications in connection with America’s 250th anniversary celebration, all featuring the Trump name as a centerpiece of the highly anticipated festivities. In one filing, a “Trump 250” image was trademarked to be used on a variety of merchandise including bumper stickers, tote bags, drinkware, clothing items, and golf balls. A wordmark application was also submitted for the name “Trump 250” on Friday.

Trump’s online store is already selling sweatshirts, a $200 dollar blanket, and golf balls with that logo.

Like the White House ballroom project, Trump’s “Freedom 250” is also a pay-to-play scheme. People and companies with financial interests likely affected by Trump are encouraged to make tax-deductible donations to gain access to, and seek favors from, him.

Corporations pay between $500,000 and $10 million to become Freedom 250 “sponsors.” A corporation giving $1 million or more will be invited to a “private Freedom 250 thank you reception” hosted by Trump. For $2.5 million or more, sponsors will even get a speaking role at the Fourth of July celebration in Washington. (Major donors so far include Lockheed Martin, ExxonMobil, Oracle, Palantir, Mastercard, and United Airlines.)

Who else is paying for Trump’s “Freedom 250” festivities? You and I, at least in part.

Tucked away inside last year’s sprawling 870-page “One Big Beautiful Act” was an allocation of $150 million for “events, celebrations, and activities surrounding the observance and commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.”

Most of those funds are going to Trump’s “Freedom 250” rather than to the nonpartisan “America250.” Why? When Congress appropriated the $150 million, only America250 was planning celebrations for the 250th. But now that Trump’s Freedom 250 is up and running, Trump’s Interior Department has doled out $100 million to it ($25 million has gone to the nonpartisan America250).

Oh, and unlike other groups created by Congress, Trump’s Freedom 250 doesn’t have to disclose anything about its spending until 2027.

So the answer to your questions about how America’s 250th is being planned and paid for — and why it’s becoming a propaganda vehicle celebrating Trump — is that Trump has pushed aside the nonpartisan group Congress set up in 2016 to plan it and substituted his own Trump-loyalist group, to which Trump’s Interior Department is siphoning off most of the taxpayer funds.

This is exactly what Trump did to the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Capital Planning Commission, and every other semi-public body Congress established for the common good.

This is the way authoritarianism substitutes for democracy — slowly and incrementally, until the whole system suddenly tips over.

But this particular example is especially ironic because “America250” was supposed to celebrate our fight for democracy against arbitrary tyranny. Trump’s “Freedom 250” is doing exactly the opposite.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

It’s impossible to understand American politics without also understanding the American economy (and vice versa). Politics and economics may be different disciplines, but they’re two sides of the same coin.

This came home to me again when I saw Thursday’s report on the U.S. gross domestic product.

Numbers can be pretty boring, but bear with me. Worker compensation — wages and benefits — grew 0.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026. Corporate profits grew 2.7 percent.

When you adjust for inflation, hourly wages have risen 3 percent since the end of 2019. Corporate profits have risen 50 percent.

Workers’ share of the nation’s income has now dropped to the lowest it’s been since records began in 1947. Profits’ share is the highest since 1950.

Most people who depend on wages for a living are struggling, while a small minority at the top who own most shares of stock and private equity — that is, people who rely on capital gains — have never had it as good.

The trend toward lower wages and higher profits began in the 1980s, increased in the 2000s, picked up speed after the pandemic, and is about to explode as Artificial Intelligence takes over.

In coming months, three companies centered on AI will go public — SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic — with expected valuations of around $1 trillion each (reflecting the gargantuan profits investors expect). But what about workers?

This is not just morally wrong. “Income from capital risks replacing income from labor,” Pope Leo wrote in Magnifica Humanitas, his encyclical letter devoted to the effects of AI, released this week.

It also threatens the future stability of our economic and political system.

What accounts for the increasing shift of the American economy from wages to profits, even before AI?

One big reason is monopolization. The economy has become concentrated in a few giant corporations with the power both to raise prices and keep wages down.

Sure, there are still lots of small businesses and mom-and-pop operations. But the gravitational center of the U.S. economy is now Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Kroger, United Health, Cigna, CVS, AT&T, Verizon, ExxonMobil, Chevron, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Vanguard, Fidelity, Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR.

These giants control large swathes of the economy. They also exert significant political power. They’re like black holes in space, sucking in vast sums of money.

Their political power makes it impossible to know whether government policy is based on the public interest or private gain.

Consider Trump’s war in Iran and its resulting surge in energy prices. The energy-price rise has caused after-tax disposable income to drop and the profits of energy companies to soar. Did Trump decide to go to war because he thought it necessary, or because Big Oil nudged him into it?

Workers, meanwhile, no longer have any countervailing power. In the 1950s, over a third of workers in the private sector were unionized. That gave them enough bargaining power to claim a significant share of the total economy. Now, only 6 percent of workers are unionized. Their bargaining power has been further eroded by their easy replacement by lower-wage workers in Asia and by software. AI will further erode it.

This trend is not sustainable. It feeds growing anger at the system, which demagogues like Trump exploit for their own ends.

What should be done? Let me list five steps (I’ll go into each in greater detail in coming months).

1. For one thing, we’re going to need a new era of antitrust. Giant corporations will have to be busted up.

2. We’ll also need to tax those at the top, especially on the value of their ownership of capital. (California voters will likely be asked to vote on a billionaire tax in November.)

3. We’ll need to regulate AI and simultaneously provide a universal basic income to cushion those who lose their jobs because of it.

4. Universal health care will be a necessity (perhaps via Medicare for all) along with subsidized childcare and eldercare.

5. Finally, we’ll need to distribute capital far more widely, so that the broad American public has a palpable stake in the rip-roaring stock market and the AI tsunami.

None of these fixes will be easy. Even if all are implemented, they may still be insufficient.

But, my friends, we have no choice but to try. We’ve already witnessed what mass anger can do to America, in the form of Trump. Unless we act soon, we’re likely to have Trumps, or worse, as far as the eye can see.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

I can’t overstate the importance of Judge Kathleen Williams’s decision on Friday to reopen Trump’s $10 billion case against the I.R.S.

She said she wants to investigate “grievous allegations” that the hasty deal to resolve it was “premised on deception,” and she ordered Trump’s lawyers to tell her by June 12 whether the lawsuit should be formally reopened because “the court was the victim of a fraud.”

The “deception” and “fraud” Judge Williams refers to were allegedly carried out by Trump and his Justice Department.

This is a big deal.

Judge Williams’s decision came in response to court papers filed on Wednesday by a bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges who urged her to revive the case and dig into the details of the agreement to settle it.

The judges’ brief is also a big deal. They call it a motion for relief from judgement or order or, alternatively, “leave to appear as amici curiae by thirty-five former federal judges.”

I don’t recall a similar instance of 35 former federal judges filing such a motion or amicus (friend of the court) brief.

In it, the judges argue that the parties’ — Trump and the Justice Department’s — so-called “settlement” agreement was made to circumvent the court ‘s possible finding that the case presented no actual controversy, since Trump is on both sides of it.

This, they conclude, constitutes a fraud on the Court.

Let me quote the remarkable brief filed by the 35 former federal judges:

“The parties have used this lawsuit—which was never an adversarial proceeding over which the Court even had jurisdiction—as a means to allow a “commission” controlled by the President to dole out $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars without constitutional or congressional authority to do so, and to confer unlawful private benefits to the President and his family by purportedly prohibiting the United States from prosecuting any and all claims against them.
And the parties have plainly tried to shield this conduct from necessary judicial scrutiny by short-circuiting this Court’s inquiry into whether the lawsuit is in fact an actual case or controversy by [seeking to dismiss the case] before they announced the “settlement”—clearly in hopes of preventing the Court from ever completing that inquiry, which, if it comes out against the parties, will undo their collusive “settlement.” ….
Accordingly, because “[t]he parties’ ‘collusive’ activity perpetrated a fraud on the judicial machinery itself, by fostering an appearance that the litigation involved adverse parties, when, in fact, it did not,” the Court should void its prior dismissal and reopen the case to assess in due course whether a fraud occurred.”

In her order on Friday, Judge Williams said she wanted to investigate the circumstances surrounding Trump’s efforts to settle the lawsuit in a way that benefited him and his allies.

She added that a federal court rule requires attorneys to ensure that court filings are “not presented for any improper purpose” and that “a party’s decision to file a frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose of forcing a settlement may qualify as such an improper purpose.”

She also noted that the settlement appeared to run afoul of Department of Justice policies that require any settlements to be “specifically limited to the immediate subject matter of the claim.”

Finally, Judge Williams pointed out that a settlement addendum that waives all tax claims the U.S. may currently have against Trump, his two eldest sons, and his businesses and trusts was signed only by Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General.

This could result in questions being asked of Blanche. Ultimately, it could result in his debarment or even imprisonment. Recall that Nixon’s Attorney General, John Mitchell, was convicted of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. He served 19 months of a two-and-a-half to eight-year sentence in federal prison before being paroled. He was the first Attorney General in United States history to be incarcerated.

Let me just say that there are forces in this country — specifically, Judge Kathleen Williams and the bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges — bent on preventing Trump from exercising authoritarian power.

In so doing, they’re displaying extraordinary courage and commitment to democracy and the rule of law. They are in effect representing all of us — our system of justice.

We owe them a great debt of gratitude. (I’m awarding them this week’s Joseph N. Welsh Award for Courage in the Face of Tyranny.)

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

When the history of the sordid and cruel megalomaniac who now occupies the Oval Office is written, it may well be that his deal with himself to set up a $1.8 billion fund for reimbursing anyone he feels was harmed by the federal government is chronicled as the final straw.

Why not Trump’s absurd tariffs, which are really import taxes passed on to consumers? Why not Trump’s needless war against Iran, which caused prices to soar and is unlikely to result in a better deal on its nuclear ambitions than the one struck by Obama? Why not his cruel ICE and Border Patrol dragnets? Why not the Epstein files or dozens of other lawless or outrageous things he’s done?

I think because almost everyone knows that the fund will be used to pay off Trump’s supporters — including the 1,500 who attacked the U.S. Capitol and then were imprisoned for it — and that paying them is a bridge too far.

This morning a federal judge barred the government from taking steps to launch the fund or process payments at least until a hearing is held in June in a pending lawsuit challenging its legality.

The order came in a case brought by a group of individuals and entities who say they have faced partisan attacks by the Trump regime but who say they expect to be excluded from accessing the fund.

It’s unusual, to say the least, that such a group would be recognized by a court as having standing to bring such a suit, because their status is entirely speculative. They merely expect to be excluded. But such is the level of cynicism about the motives and processes of Trump that even a district court judge would automatically recognize the validity of such an expectation.

It is impossible to conceive that those who have been attacked by Trump’s Justice Department — such as former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James — would be compensated by Trump’s fund. Nor would the former federal prosecutor who claims he was fired for his work on the January 6 investigation, or people arrested while protesting immigration raids.

Other lawsuits challenging the fund have been filed in the District of Columbia and in California. But the interesting thing is it’s not just lawsuits, and it’s not just Democrats. A number of prominent Republican lawmakers have publicly objected to the fund.

The fact that public money would be spent, and that the fund would be entirely under Trump’s control, also figures in.

Remarkably, 35 former federal judges on Wednesday urged the judge who closed Trump’s case with the IRS — the origin of the fund — to take another look at the terms of the deal. I can’t recall another instance of former judges petitioning a sitting judge to take another look at the terms of a settlement.

The stench of Trump’s self-dealing, compounded by the absurdity of his suing his own Justice Department for $10 billion — and the department’s responding with a “deal” that would give him $1.8 billion to reward his supporters, and future immunity from IRS audits — seems to have tipped some set of cosmic scales.

The scales of justice and also the political scales. Republican members of Congress are hearing an uproar from their constituents about this, which persuaded many to leave town without acting on Trump’s second big reconciliation bill.

I asked earlier this week if Trump has finally overplayed his hand. I believe the cumulative effects of all his wanton and harmful initiatives over the last several months are now setting in. The $1.8 billion fund will be seen as the straw that broke Trump’s legal and political back — the act of hubris that illuminated all the other acts of hubris, the very emblem of Trump’s contempt for anything and everyone beyond himself and his own self-glorification.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

I do not wish Trump ill. While he hasn’t shown a shred of compassion for anyone other than himself, this doesn’t justify our lacking compassion for him.

It’s also in the interest of America and the world that he be physically and mentally able to discharge the duties of his office.

So we have reason to be concerned about Trump’s visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center early Tuesday for what the White House called a “routine annual dental and medical assessment.”

Trump turns 80 next month. I feel entitled to comment on the practical meaning of this milestone because I’ll also turn 80 next month (he was born 10 days before me).

Let’s just say that reaching it doesn’t mean altogether good things, unless you consider the alternative.

Even in a healthy person, small things begin to break down as one approaches 80. Everything takes just a bit more time and effort. Joints ache. Energy isn’t quite as abundant.

The 80-year-old mind isn’t as quick. The frontal lobe’s capacity to remember names goes to s---. (Yesterday, I could barely remember the name of a garage mechanic whom I’ve known for nearly half a century.)

Taken separately, such minor frailties are typically no more than a personal frustration, but they begin to mount up. In a president of the United States, they can pose a major challenge to the nation and world.

Trump frequently proclaims he’s in excellent health. “Just finished my 6 month physical at Walter Reed Military Medical Center. Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” he wrote on Truth Social early yesterday afternoon. “Thank you to the great Doctors and Staff! Heading back to the White House.”

But even “PERFECTLY” is a relative concept for someone ending his seventh decade and beginning his eighth, who’s the oldest person to assume the presidency and the second-oldest to hold the office. (Joe Biden was 82 when he left in 2025.)

Presidents aren’t legally required to release their medical records, but, given the effluvium of lies in which Trump permanently floats, we’d be excused if we didn’t entirely trust this PERFECTLY report.

Plus, there are his bruised hands, swollen ankles, bouts of drowsiness, exceedingly long blinks during official meetings (some call them “naps”), and erratic — if not off-the-charts weird — behavior.

Add in the frequency of his health “checkups.”

Tuesday’s visit to Walter Reed was Trump’s third in-person doctor’s visit in a little over a year. His first physical of this term of office was in mid-April last year. He returned in early October for a “semiannual physical.” In early January, he had what was described as a brief dental appointment. Earlier this month, another dental appointment. Followed by his return to Walter Reed on Tuesday for his third “annual” physical in 13 months.

Consider also the shifting explanations. In July, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, Trump’s physician, explained that bruises on Trump’s right hand were “consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking.” The explanation seemed plausible until the bruises spread to his left hand.

Then there’s the changing story about Trump’s scans. In December he told reporters that he’d had an MRI in October but wasn’t sure what part of his body was scanned. “It wasn’t the brain,” he said, defensively, “because I took a cognitive test and I aced it.” Barbabella then issued a memo explaining it had been a scan of his heart and abdomen, and that in both cases the advanced imaging was “perfectly normal.”

In January, Trump altered his story to say it was a CT scan rather than an MRI. Why? Trump being Trump, he doesn’t want anyone to know anything about his health that might reveal something he fears enemies and critics might see as a weakness.

“In retrospect, it’s too bad I took [the scan] because it gave them a little ammunition,” Trump said. “I would have been a lot better off if [I] didn’t, because the fact that I took it said, ‘Oh gee, is something wrong?’ Well, nothing’s wrong.”

What’s he afraid of? Probably that the American public will catch on to his rapidly diminishing capacities.

Three years ago, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, only 28 percent of the public thought Trump insufficiently healthy to hold the nation’s highest office. Earlier this month, the same poll found that 55 percent of the public thought his health insufficient for him to serve effectively.

Behind the public’s mounting worries is a growing sense that Trump isn’t mentally all there.

Physical and mental health aren’t easily separated, especially as one reaches 80. I often can’t remember where I put my wallet and keys or why I’ve entered a room. I also have less patience than I used to. I’m less tolerant of long waiting lines, automated phone menus, and Republicans.

But if Trump can’t remember where he put, say, a top-secret memo or why he entered the Situation Room, or if he expresses bizarre impatience, it’s a potential risk to the nation and world.

Worse, Trump is exhibiting clear symptoms of dementia.

“Open the F-----’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in H---” Trump exploded on his social media Easter morning, adding an Islamic prayer to the end of the post.

The following Tuesday he threatened that unless Iran struck a deal in 12 hours, its whole civilization would die.

When Iran shot down two U.S. airmen, aides who were getting minute-by-minute updates reportedly kept Trump out of the Situation Room because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful, a senior administration official said.

Then came Trump’s rant against the pope.

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. … I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t! … Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”

During a subsequent Q&A with reporters, Trump doubled down: “I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess. … I am not a fan of Pope Leo.”

Days later Trump posted an AI-generated portrait of himself as a kind of American Jesus. When this caused a wave of criticism and outrage (much of it from fundamentalist Christians), he insisted he was portraying himself “as a doctor, making people better.”

Rather than helping Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections by, for example, embarking on an “affordability tour” (as White House aides have urged him to do), Trump has been on a “revenge tour” against Republican members of Congress he deems insufficiently loyal — a gambit that may cost Republicans dearly in the midterms.

At yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump touted the primary wins of Republicans he endorsed, including yesterday’s Texas victory of Ken Paxton over incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn.

Paxton carries more baggage than the U.S. Postal Service — including abuse-of-office allegations from his top staff, an indictment for securities fraud, impeachment by Texas’s Republican House, and an ongoing divorce initiated by his wife, who alleges adultery — which will help the Democratic challenger, James Talarico.

Yet Trump insisted at the Cabinet meeting that “I don’t care about the midterms.” He was referring to Iranian officials who “thought they were going to outwait me” by relying on mounting political pressures to force him to give up, but he might as well have been talking about the blowback from his revenge tour.

Trump ended yesterday’s Cabinet meeting with further evidence of his mental decline in another rant against Somali-Americans. “The Somalians, what they’ve done to Minnesota, the Somalians, crooked as hell. Ilhan Omar, crooked as hell,” he said, in reference to the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota. “They’re all crooks, and we got them, we got them. Now we’re putting the clamps on,” Trump said.

His antipathy toward Somali-Americans is growing, with his dementia. In December, weeks before ICE went on a rampage in Minneapolis, Trump claimed Somalis made Minnesota a “hellhole,” saying “the Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country.” Of Somalia-born Omar, Trump said, “she shouldn’t be allowed to be a congresswoman, and I’m sure people are looking at that. She should be thrown the h--- out of our country.” A day earlier, he called the congresswoman “garbage,” saying he didn’t want Somalis in the U.S.

Can you imagine any other president of the United States singling out a group of foreign-born Americans like this? Of course not.

The evidence continues to mount. Trump is both physically and mentally incapable of discharging the duties of president of the United States.

The sooner the 25th Amendment is invoked, or he is impeached, the safer America and the world will be.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Trump’s war in Iran is entering its third month. Gas is $1.50 more at the pump than it was before February 28. Other prices are rising. The American economy is showing signs of the dreaded stagflation (the combination of inflation and stagnation that’s difficult to overcome). There’s a loud outcry over revelations about Trump’s self-dealing, including his $1.8 billion slush fund and permanent immunity from any IRS audits of him and his family.

Given all this, some political observers I rely on tell me Trump has finally overplayed his hand. He’s a lame duck who’s now facing the beginning of the end. His power is disappearing. Not all political observers I’ve been consulting agree.

Hence, this week’s Office Hours question: In your view, has Trump finally overplayed his hand, and, if so, what are the likely consequences for him, America, and the world?

I’ve grouped the responses I’ve received from seasoned political observers into several categories, which I’ve summarized below. I’d appreciate your thoughts.

1. Yes, congressional Republicans in particular have finally had it with him and are rebelling, with grave consequences for him and his agenda.

Last week, Senate Republicans gave a closed-door standing ovation to Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whom Trump vanquished in a primary. Trump’s beef with Cassidy was that Cassidy had voted to convict Trump in Trump’s impeachment trial for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Although most Senate Republicans had been unwilling to follow Cassidy then, last week they rebelled at the idea of giving funds to rioters who attacked the Capitol. “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Majority Leader, said. “Utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick.”

They’re also furious at Trump’s decision to back Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas’s high-stakes Senate race over their colleague incumbent senior Sen. John Cornyn — who has always voted exactly as Trump has wanted. They worry that Paxton will lose to Democrat James Talarico because of Paxton’s history of legal and ethical controversies: abuse-of-office allegations from his top staff, a securities fraud indictment, impeachment by the Republican Texas House, and an ongoing divorce initiated by his wife, who alleges adultery. Republicans say Trump’s endorsement of Paxton has alienated lawmakers on Capitol Hill and turned off major GOP donors who’ll be critical in the midterms.

This rebellion of Republican senators also jeopardizes the rest of Trump’s legislative agenda, including his second “reconciliation” bill and his $1 billion ballroom. It could even tempt some Senate Republicans to join Democrats in convicting him of impeachable offenses, should Dems retake Congress in 2027.

The situation isn’t much better for Trump among House Republicans. Last Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson sent representatives home a day early to keep members from passing a war powers resolution that would order Trump to remove U.S. troops from his war on Iran. And Republican Representative Thomas Massie (who last week lost his primary after Trump backed his opponent) said that he’d name more names from the Epstein files.

2. Yes, Republican voters are finally seeing the light, and many are deciding to vote for a Democratic candidate in the midterms or not vote at all. Most other voters have by now firmly rejected him.

Other close political observers tell me the biggest change over the last month has occurred among voters — including many Republicans — who have now had it with Trump. The likely consequence is a Democratic takeover of the House and possibly the Senate in the midterm elections.

Because of inflation and the war in Iran, Trump’s approval among Republicans has fallen to its lowest level of his second term. He promised to bring down prices and avoid foreign entanglements, and he’s done the opposite.

This low rating within his own party is remarkable because Republican backing of Trump has been more stable than that of independents or Democrats. “Despite consistently strong GOP support, the president’s numbers are leaking,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw. “Independents jumped ship in 2025, and now non-MAGA Republicans and other core constituencies are wavering.” A majority of Republicans (51 percent) now disapprove of Trump’s performance on inflation, compared with even higher levels among independents (85 percent) and Democrats (96 percent).

More broadly, Trump’s popularity has plunged with voters. A Fox News poll conducted from May 15 to May 18 shows 61 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance (including 48 percent who said they strongly disapprove), while only 39 percent approve overall. This is the highest disapproval rating ever recorded in the Fox News polls. The poll shows disapproval of Trump’s handling of the economy rising from 56 percent a year ago to 71 percent now — the highest level in the polling series. On inflation, just 24 percent approve of Trump’s performance, down from 35 percent in January.

3. No. Trump hasn’t overplayed his hand because he still maintains an iron grip on the Republican Party and on non-college rural voters, and he has the support of a majority of the Supreme Court.

Other political observers whom I rely on disagree. They tell me that any “rebellion” by Senate Republicans, or unhappiness of voters (including a bare majority of Republican voters), is irrelevant because Trump remains in power, he has an iron grip on the Republican Party, and he assumes he no longer needs Congress anyway.

If the Democrats take control of the House after the midterms and hold hearings exposing more of Trump’s failings, he’ll just ignore them. In the unlikely event Democrats also take control of the Senate, he’ll still ignore them — or use them as foils, blaming them for the bad economy or any other longer-term negative outcomes of his war with Iran.

In the unlikely event that the House impeaches him and two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict him, he’ll dispute the result and take it to the Supreme Court, by which time his term is likely to be over anyway. (And the high court may well side with him in any event.)

4. No. In fact, he’s just getting started.

A few political observers tell me that Trump is just getting started. He will refuse to be a lame duck. Knowing that he’s facing the last two years of his presidency and his last opportunity to leave behind a “legacy,” he’ll be even more emboldened.

He will use his remaining time in office to go even further arresting and deporting people residing in the United States — not just those here illegally but also legal residents (green card or naturalized) merely accused of committing crimes or protesting against his regime, or who have done nothing other than live in Democratic-run cities and states.

He will also, according to these observers, go further in his belligerent foreign policy: taking over Cuba, seeking to occupy Greenland, demanding subservience from Canada and Mexico, and extending his “emergency” against suspected drug smugglers on the high seas.

My sources tell me that they expect Trump also to go further in seeking to leave his imprint on Washington, D.C. (his arch, ballroom, makeover of the Kennedy Center, etc.), his efforts to silence critics (including universities), and to make as much money for himself and his family as possible. Several told me they would not be surprised if he attempted to remain in office for a third term, if his health allows it. He figures this is his last chance, and there’s no way anyone or any institution can stop him.

So, what do you think? Has he finally overreached? What are the consequences?

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

He’s no longer even trying to hide it. He makes a deal with himself for a $1.8 billion slush fund to reward loyalists willing to defy the law and commit violence on his behalf, and for a pardon of himself and his family for any illegal self-dealing and financial wrongs “FOREVER” (it’s in all caps in the document).

Then, when the deal is widely criticized, he posts:

“I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced Anti-Weaponization Fund to go forward. I could have settled my case, including the illegal release of my Tax Returns and the equally illegal BREAK IN of Mar-a-Lago, for an absolute fortune. Instead, I am helping others who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE! President DJT.”

Does he really believe he could have settled his case for an absolute fortune — the case that he brought against himself — the case a federal judge doubted was even a “case” because he was on both sides of it?

Last week, a disclosure form showed that Trump’s investment portfolio executed more than 3,600 trades in the first three months of this year alone, many involving companies that he has favored with access or policies.

America is slouching toward the 250th anniversary of our revolution against arbitrary power with a president who shamelessly exercises it. Never before have we witnessed this degree of self-dealing, bribe taking, usurpation of congressional authority, and open defiance of federal courts.

It’s an unconstitutional slippery slope. If Trump can get away with creating for himself a $1.8 billion slush fund that Congress never approved and courts cannot oversee, and wantonly trade the shares of companies his policies are favoring, what’s to stop him from creating a $10 billion or $10 trillion self-dealing slush fund?

If he can get away with preemptive pardoning himself and his family for any and all future financial wrongdoing, what’s to stop him from pardoning himself and family for any future criminal acts?

These are only a part of the slippery slope we’re on. If he can abduct a foreign president without Congress’s permission, what’s to stop him from abducting anyone? If he can order the U.S. military to kill a foreign head of state without even Congress declaring a war, what’s to stop him from ordering the military to kill anyone?

If he can target political enemies for criminal prosecution, what’s to stop him from jailing or murdering his opponents?

If he can unilaterally decide that someone on a boat in the high seas is an “enemy combatant” and summarily kill them, what’s to stop him from calling anyone he dislikes an enemy combatant and having them killed?

If he can put his name on buildings all over Washington and take a wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White House, what’s to stop him from taking a wrecking ball to the entire edifice and putting up a Trump tower?

He feels unstoppable because there’s no one around him to tell him no. Instead, he’s surrounded by sycophants who tell him yes. He gets blind loyalty from his lapdogs — his vice president, his Cabinet, and most Republicans in Congress — who work for him rather than for the American people.

He feels indomitable because his billionaire backers — Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Larry and David Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, and Rupert Murdoch, among others — have stuffed his PAC with their money and silenced criticism of him on their media platforms, in order to garner his favors. Meanwhile, his followers feast on his white Christian nationalism, and regard him as godlike.

He feels invincible because he was reelected president even though he was impeached twice and has been found guilty of 34 felony counts, and the Supreme Court has shielded him from further criminal prosecution for “official” acts (which he takes to mean any actions while he’s president). Congress is barely an obstacle because, as he demonstrated as recently as last week, he has a chokehold over the Republican Party. He even says he “doesn’t need Congress.”

He feels invulnerable because he’ll never directly face voters again, and therefore will never lose — nor, he assumes, ever be held accountable for anything.

My friends, this is full-frontal neofascism. I suggest we respond in these ways:

On July 4, the 250th anniversary of the nation’s independence, we wear black armbands to acknowledge the near death of our democracy and the rule of law under Trump.

In the weeks and months leading up to the midterm election on November 3, 2026, we commit to getting the largest voter turnout in American history, to take back Congress and stop the neofascist in the White House. Not just a blue wave but a blue tsunami.

On Election Day 2028, we elect a president whose character and temperament are consistent with the founding ideals of the United States — someone both humble and honorable, who’s committed to strengthening democracy and the rule of law, who will revive the self-governing institutions that Trump has s--- on and refocus the nation on our vast unfinished agenda of inclusion, rather than exclusion.

Beyond these, we will do whatever we can to learn from this catastrophe and help America learn. We will teach our children and grandchildren the truth of what has happened, and how close we’ve come to losing our democracy. And we will educate future generations on what we owe one another as citizens of this great land.

To accomplish all this we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/