The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

Friends, I trust Joe Biden’s steadiness and judgment, and if he runs again, I’ll probably back him in 2024. But today I want to suggest someone who isn’t even a Democrat, and whose positions on many issues I (and I suspect you) strongly disagree with — but who could possibly be the best president of the United States for the perilous time we’re entering.I’m referring to Liz Cheney.Before you reject this idea out of hand, please bear with me. Even if you still end up thinking it’s a ludicrous notion, let me take you through the argument. I’ve been in and around American politics for well over a half century. I’ve never seen this nation as bitterly divided as it is now — not during the Civil Rights movement, not during the Vietnam War, not during Watergate. And it looks as if the current division is growing deeper and even more dangerous. Donald Trump didn’t just attempt a coup. He attempted to push America into a civil war. And he’s still at it — endorsing candidates who will repeat his Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, encouraging states to change their election laws so Republican lawmakers can disregard the popular vote, and pushing them to install secretaries of state and other election officials who will count votes in ways favorable to Republicans — especially him, should he run for president again in 2024. In short, Trump wants a civil war centered on himself — on his Big Lie, and on the racist nationalism he fueled to build his political base. Trump’s narcissism is so poisonous that he is committed to splitting the nation over its commitment to him. As president, Trump never understood that he was president of America as a whole. He considered himself to be president only of his supporters, whom he called “my people.” Those who didn’t support him were his enemies. Since the 2020 election, he has done everything possible to stoke war between his supporters and his perceived enemies. Clearly, that’s his aim in 2024. It will be impossible to reunite this nation without a leader who is the exact opposite of Trump — driven not by narcissism but by a passion for the rule of law and the Constitution — someone who has staked everything on opposing Trump’s demagogic authoritarianism, someone with huge stores of courage and integrity. Since the attack on the Capitol, Liz Cheney has demonstrated more courage and integrity than any other politician in America. Democratic lawmakers have opposed Trump’s Big Lie, to be sure, but most knew they wouldn’t pay a price for their opposition. Cheney knew she would pay a price — and she has. Six days after the attack on the Capitol — when no other Republican in the House or Senate was willing to rebuke Trump — she said this on the House floor:Much more will become clear in the coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.The following day, on January 13, Cheney joined nine House Republicans and 222 Democrats in voting to impeach Trump. She subsequently agreed to be vice-chairman of the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. As a result of these actions, Trump and House G.O.P. leaders have sought to drive Cheney out of the party. House Republicans revoked her status as the third-highest-ranking leader of the Republican caucus. Wyoming Republicans have censured her. Trump and the Republican Party are backing her primary challenger in Wyoming, Harriet Hageman, whose campaign has received huge amounts of funding from rightwing groups. Polling shows Cheney faces an uphill battle to keep her seat.But she has not wavered.Last Thursday evening, at the start of the televised hearings of the committee, Cheney laid out the case against Trump, whom, she argued, had thrown the republic into “a moment of maximum danger” not seen before. “The sacred obligation to defend this peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president — except one,” she said. She told members of her own party who continued to support Trump’s Big Lie that they were “defending the indefensible” and “there will come a day when President Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”As I said, Cheney is a firm conservative and I have opposed many of her positions. But we are at an inflection point in this nation over a set of principles that transcend any particular positions or policies. If we cannot agree on the sanctity of the Constitution and the rule of law, we are no longer capable of self government. The real battle in 2024 will not be between Democrats and Republicans. It will be between forces supporting democracy in America and those supporting authoritarianism. Trump is the de facto leader of the forces supporting authoritarianism. Liz Cheney has become the de facto leader of the forces supporting democracy. I hope she declares herself a candidate for president and runs in the Republican primary against Trump. The G.O.P desperately needs her moral clarity and authority. She would give voice to Republicans who have been voiceless, and allow the Republican Party to redeem itself — to reclaim the status it needs to ever again be a governing party. If she runs, many currently independent voters — who outnumber registered Republicans — could register as Republicans and vote for her, possibly delivering Trump a sharp repudiation in his own party and making it safe for other Republican lawmakers to declare the truth about the 2020 election. In her courage and integrity, Cheney — although conservative — reminds me of Senator Paul Wellstone, one of the most progressive politicians I’ve ever known. They also have in common a love of democracy. The last time I spoke with Paul was soon after he voted against the resolution authorizing war in Iraq, on October 11, 2002. The trauma of 9/11 was still fresh, but Wellstone doubted that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction,” as George W. Bush and his administration claimed. Wellstone worried that America was acting out of anger rather than principle, and that there was no justification for such an invasion.I agreed with him but was concerned for him. He was up for reelection. It was a tight race. Polls showed that most of his constituents in Minnesota supported the war.“Don’t worry, Bob,” he said. “If I lose, that’s okay. I was elected to vote my conscience. If my constituents don’t support my conscience, I shouldn’t represent them.”In the following days, Wellstone explained to Minnesotans why he voted the way he did, and his polls rose. Had he lived, he may well have won reelection. (On October 25, 2002, eleven days before the election, he died in a plane crash on his way to a campaign event near Eveleth, Minnesota. His wife, Sheila, and daughter, Marcia, also died on board.)Liz Cheney’s courage and integrity are closer to Paul Wellstone’s than to almost any current politician I can think of. All of America needs her to run for president in the Republican primaries for the 2024 election. Do we need her to win as well? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (Executive Director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student), discussing the past week. Today we cover how to measure the success of the hearings of the House January 6 committee, which began Thursday night; inflation (the Consumer Price Index came out yesterday, showing that inflation continues to increase) and its impact on the midterm elections and on the rest of the economy; and — in the midst of all this — Salsa dancing and spinning class during Pride Month. Know someone who might want to join us for coffee? Please share. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

What’s the use of the hearings by the House committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection —hearings that began last night and will run for the next several weeks — unless they lead to criminal prosecution of Donald Trump for his patently criminal actions? In a word: History. We tend to underestimate the importance of an historic record. But it is vastly important. It charts the course of the future by illuminating the course of the past. It is literally the final word. I don’t know whether Trump will be prosecuted. He deserves to be. He has violated his oath to the Constitution; he has violated America. But even if he is not prosecuted, the hearings will provide a full, detailed account of what Trump did in the weeks and months after the 2020 election — and therefore of what he did to our nation. In other words, even if he avoids prosecution, even if he is never formally deemed a criminal under the law, Trump will be accountable to history. That is not as satisfying a form of accountability as a criminal judgment, to be sure. But it is a form of accountability that is inescapable. If the committee does its work properly — and I have every confidence it will — it will create a clear record. Which means that for our children and our children’s children — for as far as future generations will know of our recorded history — Donald Trump will live in infamy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Tonight, we learned several things from the first hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol:1. After the riot began on January 6, many White House officials, including members of Trump’s own family, urged him to call off the rioters. He did not. Presumably the committee will provide detailed evidence of this. 2. When told that the rioters wanted to lynch Vice President Pence for being unwilling to stop the certification by electors, Trump said "maybe our supporters have the right idea" and he "deserves it." Here, too, I’m looking forward to detailed evidence. 3. When the riot was underway, Pence called for extra help from the Defense Department. 4. Also when the riot was underway, minority Leader McCarthy called Trump, family members, and chief of staff Mark Meadows, to get Trump to issue a statement to tell the rioters to stop. Yet Meadows wanted only to “control the narrative” so that it didn’t look as if Pence was in charge.5. The riot was the culmination of months of a carefully-constructed plot by Trump and his cronies to advance the big lie that the election was stolen. According to Cheney, Trump personally coordinated a sophisticated 7-part plan to overturn the result of the election.6. Yet Trump knew — because he was repeatedly told by his own staff, including his attorney general — that there was no evidence that the outcome of the election was the result of fraud. “I told the president it was b******t,” then Attorney General Barr told the committee, referring to Mr. Trump’s claims of election fraud. “I didn’t want to be a part of it.”There is much more, which presumably will be detailed over the next several weeks. The star of tonight’s hearing was Republican vice-chair of the committee, Liz Cheney, who said at the end of her opening remarks, referring to her Republican colleagues who continue to lie on behalf of Trump: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone. But your dishonor will remain.”But I’ve got two key questions about these proceedings: — At the start of this post I used the terms “we learned” several things. But will anyone who has fallen for Trump’s Big Lie learn anything from these hearings? Fox News decided not to air them. Rightwing social media has discounted them, or charged them with being part of a conspiracy against Trump. The mainstream media continues to frame the hearings in partisan terms — asking, for example, whether they will help or hinder Democrats in the midterms.— Will the hearings have any bearing on whether Attorney General Merrick Garland prosecutes Trump for criminal acts — such as violating 18 U.S.C. § 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and 18 U.S.C. § 1512, obstruction of Congress? So far, at least 862 people have been arrested and charged with crimes. But the window of opportunity for prosecuting Trump is closing. Once he declares his intention to run for president, prosecuting him will become far more directly entangled in partisan politics. We must not allow these hearings to become — like the Mueller report and the two impeachment proceedings against Trump — another dead letter, which I fear would only embolden Trump further. Trump must be held accountable. The future of our democracy hangs in the balance. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

My friends, I’m going to press the pause button on today’s news — including the House January 6 hearings that start this evening — and try to answer a big question that hangs over American politics right now like a sword of Damocles: Does Joe Biden have a snowball’s chance of being re-elected in 2024? With his current approval rate in the cellar, most pundits assume no (at age 81, he’d also be the oldest person ever elected president, slightly exceeding the typical American’s lifespan). The conventional thinking goes that if he gets the Democratic nomination for 2024 (a big if), Biden will be demolished by Trump (or a Trump surrogate like Florida governor Ron DeSantis) — putting America at the mercy of an even crazier authoritarian than Trump version 1.0.That’s way too simplistic. Biden’s approval rating is now at around 40 per cent. Ronald Reagan was polling at about the same at this point in his presidency when he was grappling with inflation and the inevitable buyer’s remorse that voters feel a year and a half into a presidency. Two and a half years later, Reagan won 49 states in his re-election bid against Walter Mondale. (Reagan was then 73, just short of the typical American’s lifespan at the time.)As for Trump, his popularity has plummeted since the 2020 election – a casualty not just of most Americans’ outrage at his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him and his role in the January 6th insurrection, but also of the poor showing (and terrifying characteristics) of many of his endorsees in recent Republican primaries The televised hearings by Congress’s select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection are unlikely to improve Trump’s standing with most voters.Besides, much can happen between now and the next presidential election to alter the odds – not the least, the composition of Congress after the midterm elections, the outcome of the war in Ukraine, and the economy.It’s true that many Democratic voters are unhappy with Biden — especially many of the young voters who surged into the 2020 election. They had expected Biden to pass more ambitious legislation on a range of issues -- slowing climate change, subsidizing childcare and eldercare, lowering the prices of prescription drugs, expanding healthcare, and raising taxes on the rich to pay for all this.  In some ways, Biden has had the worst of both worlds: The 2020 elections that gave Democrats control over both houses of Congress raised expectations that Biden’s proposals would be enacted, but senate Republicans torpedoed almost all of them (apart from benefits to tide people over during the second COVID wave and a deal on infrastructure). Biden also has had to cope with two Democratic senators – West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Krysten Sinema -- who vote like Republicans. Even if Manchin and Sinema were willing to support Biden’s proposals, they won't join other senate Democrats in eliminating the filibuster. That means, under current Senate rules, at least 10 Republicans would have to agree with all fifty Democrats to limit debate and move to a vote – a nearly insurmountable obstacle.An even more basic problem for Biden is that the Democratic Party he knew when he was elected to the Senate fifty years ago from blue-collar Delaware is not the Democratic Party that elected him in 2020. It’s now largely composed of young adults, college-educated voters, and people of color. In the intervening years, many working-class white voters who were once loyal Democrats joined the Republican Party. As their wages stagnated and their jobs grew insecure, the Republican Party channeled their economic frustrations into animus toward immigrants, global trade, Black people and Latinos, LGBTQ people, and “coastal elites” who want to control guns and permit abortions.These so-called “culture wars” have served to distract such voters from the brute fact that the Republican Party has zero ideas to reverse the economic trends that left the working class behind. The culture wars have also distracted attention from the near-record shares of national income and wealth that have shifted to the top. As well as from the Republican’s role in pushing even more to the top through tax cuts and subsidies, attacks on labor unions, and refusals to support social benefits that have become standard in most other advanced nations (such as paid sick and family leave, universal healthcare, and generous unemployment insurance).During his 36 years in the Senate, followed by eight as Obama’s vice president, I’m sure Biden became aware of the loss of these working-class voters. And he must have known of the Democrat’s failure to regain their loyalty.The Obama administration expanded public health insurance, to be sure. But Democratic administrations also embraced global trade and financial deregulation, took a hands-off approach to corporate mergers and growing industrial concentration, bailed out Wall Street, and gave corporations free rein to bash labor unions (reducing the unionized portion of the private-sector workforce during the last half century from a third to 6 percent).It was a huge error – politically, economically, and, one might even say, morally.What accounted for this error? I saw it up close: the Democratic Party’s growing dependence on campaign money from big corporations, Wall Street, and wealthy Americans – whose “donations” (bribes) to both parties soared.   Clinton styled himself a “new Democrat” who would govern from above the old political divides -- “triangulate,” in the parlance of his pollster, Dick Morris. In practice, Clinton auctioned off the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidders, made Wall Street’s Robert Rubin his chief economic adviser, advocated and signed the North American Free Trade Act, opened the US to Chinese exports, and cleared the way for Wall Street to gamble.Obama brought into his administration even more Wall Street alumni and made Larry Summers his chief economic advisor. Obama promptly bailed out the Street when its gambling threatened the entire economy but asked nothing of the banks in return. Millions of Americans lost their homes, jobs, and savings, yet not a single top Wall Street official went to jail.Small wonder that by 2016, two political outsiders gave dramatic expression to the populist bitterness that had been growing – Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right. At the time, they even spoke the same language – complaining of a “rigged system” and a corrupt political establishment, and promising fundamental change.Joe Biden saw all this unfold. He came to publicly regret his vote to ease banking rules. He never celebrated the virtue of free markets. He has been far closer to organized labor and more comfortable with non-college working-class voters than either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. “I am a union man, period,” he has repeatedly said. He’s no free trader, either. Biden proposed relocating supply chains for pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and medical supplies in the United States, and imposing tax penalties on companies that relocate jobs abroad and credits for those that bring them home. He has kept in place most of the trade restrictions that Trump placed on China.During the 2020 presidential campaign Biden was billed as a “centrist” seeking bipartisan solutions. But he had big, non-centrist ambitions. Seeking to be a “transformative” president, he openly sought a New Deal-style presidency. Once in office, he proposed the largest social agenda in recent American history. That Biden failed to get most of this agenda passed in his first term was due less to his own inadequacies than to the Democrat’s razor-thin congressional majorities, the aforementioned Manchin and Sinema, and the Party’s own compromised position vis-à-vis the power structure of America.But Biden’s and the Democrat’s deepest challenge was, and continues to be, voter’s distrust of the system.  All political and economic systems depend fundamentally on people’s trust that its processes are free from bias and its outcomes are fair.Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him has contributed to the distrust but is not responsible for it. Only about a third of Americans believe him.  The real source of distrust is the same force that ushered Trump into the White House in 2016: four decades of near stagnant wages, widening inequality, a shrinking middle class, ever more concentrated wealth at the top, and growing corruption in the form of campaign cash from the wealthy and corporations.If Democrats retain control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections (possible but unlikely, given the usual pattern in which the party in control loses it) Biden could still become a transformative president in the last two years of his first term if he focuses like a laser on reversing these trends.Even if Democrats do not hold onto Congress, Biden could be a moral voice for why the system must be transformed. It’s his best hope for being reelected in 2024.What do you think? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Last Friday — after Elon Musk said he planned to cut thousands of jobs at Tesla and also expressed worry over the economy — Joe Biden dismissed him with a zinger: “Lots of luck on his trip to the moon.”There’s no love lost between them. The fiercely anti-union Musk has been livid ever since pro-union Biden pushed a provision in a bill that would benefit electric-car makers that are unionized at the expense of those that are not (namely Tesla). In recent weeks Musk has said he has become a Republican because the Democratic Party has grown too radical. (On which planet has he been living?)Musk may be an innovator, but he’s a lousy boss — with a long record of punishing his workers for exercising their rights under the labor laws and exposing them to unsafe working conditions. He reopened his Tesla factory in California over the explicit objections of county officials who deemed it unsafe from COVID, resulting in hundreds of infections. And he’s brazenly disregarded securities and related laws in order to generate even more wealth for himself. Yet in yesterday’s New York Times’s DealBook, Andrew Ross Sorkin warns Biden against further mockery or criticism of Musk because of the “power of [Musk’s] voice and potential political potency,” noting that Musk “has a loyal almost religious following. Some of his fans have even tattooed his name, his face and the Tesla logo on their bodies. And he can often control the news cycle with a single tweet.”Rubbish. If the president of the United States isn’t willing to stand up to the richest person in America — a modern-day robber baron who treats his workers like horse manure and gives his middle finger to public servants — who is? Sorkin even urges that Biden cozy up to Musk — lavishing praise on him and arranging a soiree at the White House. Why? Because, Sorkin argues, Biden needs Musk’s support more than Biden needs the support of unionized workers. Sorkin notes that while only about 14 million Americans belong to unions, Musk has nearly 100 million followers on Twitter.Hello? Have we really come to a point where a president should check how many Twitter followers a mogul has before deciding how to treat him? In the United States today, notoriety and money can command so much public adulation that an establishment organ like the Times unabashedly advises a president to make nice to a childlike business thug. Forget the older badges of honor — bravery in war, great artistry or insight, superb public service, years of government experience, extensive philanthropy. Now all you need are tens of millions of Twitter followers, the biggest bank account in human history, and an attitude. This past weekend, MAGA-extremist Senate candidate “Dr. Oz” clinched the Republican nomination for the senate seat in Pennsylvania. Oz has no history of public service or qualifications relevant to holding one of the highest offices in the land. His embrace of junk science has been repeatedly condemned by respected members of the medical community. It’s not even clear that he lives in the state he’s running to represent. He is a proponent of the Big Lie who wants to ban abortion and implied in at least one ad that conservatives should use guns to intimidate lawmakers (or worse). Like Donald Trump in 2015, Oz is politically viable only because skilled TV producers and editors spent years crafting an illusion that he is wise, competent, and caring. The production teams on The Apprentice and Dr. Oz could not have anticipated that the illusions they created might one day pose real-life political dangers to the nation (any more than Spielberg would have worried the mechanical shark in Jaws might run for office).But we are living in an age of distrust toward all major institutions of society. The old badges of honor — which emanated from and depended on such institutions — no longer apply. Public acclaim today, and the power that accompanies it, come by way of image and hype ricocheting through Twitter and other social media, thereby creating the illusion of wisdom and strength. That illusion can get someone who has no qualifications whatsoever nominated to the United States Senate. It can elicit a recommendation from the New York Times that a president refrain from criticizing someone who deserves public censure. It could even result in another presidential term of office for someone who staged an attempted coup. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

The televised hearings of the House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection, which begin Thursday, mark an historic milestone in the battle between democracy and autocracy. The events that culminated in the attack on the Capitol constitute the first attempted presidential coup in our nation’s 233-year history. The Select Committee’s inquiry is the most important congressional investigation of presidential wrongdoing since the Senate investigation of the Watergate scandals in the 1970s.To a large degree, the success of those hearings will depend on the Wyoming Republican congresswoman and vice-chair of the committee, Liz Cheney. Although I have disagreed with almost every substantive position she has ever taken, I salute her courage and her patriotism. And I wish her success. I vividly recall the televised hearings of the Senate Watergate committee, which began nearly a half-century ago, on May 17, 1973. More than a year later, on August 8, 1974 —knowing that he would be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate — Nixon resigned.I was just finishing law school when the Watergate hearings began. I was supposed to study for final exams but remained glued to my television. I remember the entire cast of characters as if the hearings occurred yesterday, and I’m sure many of you do, too — people such as North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, a Democrat, who served as the committee’s co-chair; John Dean, the White House counsel who told the committee about Nixon’s attempted coverup; and Alexander Butterfield, Nixon’s deputy assistant, who revealed that Nixon had taped all conversations in the White House. But to my young eyes, the hero of the Watergate hearings was the committee’s Republican co-chair, Tennessee Senator Howard Baker, Jr. Baker had deep ties to the Republican Party. His father was a Republican Congress­man and his father-in-law was Senate minor­ity leader for a decade. Notwithstanding those ties, Baker put his loyalty to the Constitution and rule of law ahead of his loyalty to his party or the president. His steadiness and care, and the tenacity with which he questioned witnesses, helped America view the Watergate hearings as a search for truth rather than a partisan “witch hunt,” as Nixon described them. It was Baker who famously asked Dean, “what did the president know and when did he know it?” And it was Baker who led all the other Republicans on the committee to join with Democrats in voting to subpoena the White House tapes — the first time a congres­sional commit­tee had ever issued a subpoena to a Pres­id­ent, and only the second time since 1807 that anyone had subpoenaed the chief exec­ut­ive. Fast forward 49 years. This week, Baker’s role will be played by Cheney. Her Republican pedigree is no less impressive than Baker’s was: She is the elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Second Lady Lynne Cheney. She held several positions in the George W. Bush administration. She is a staunch conservative. And, before House Republicans ousted her, she chaired the House Republican Conference, the third-highest position in the House Republican leadership. Cheney’s responsibility this week will be similar to Baker’s 49 years ago — to be the steady voice of non-partisan common sense, helping the nation view the hearings as a search for truth rather than a “witch hunt,” as Trump has characterized them. In many ways, though, Cheney’s role will be far more challenging than Baker’s. Forty-nine years ago, American politics was a tame affair compared to the viciousness of today’s political culture. Republican senators didn’t threaten to take away Howard Baker’s seniority or his leadership position. The Tennessee Republican Party didn’t oust him. Nixon didn’t make threatening speeches about him. Baker received no death threats, as far as anyone knows. It will be necessary for Cheney to show — as did Baker — more loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law than to her party or the former president. But she also will have to cope with a nation more bitterly divided over Trump’s big lie than it ever was over Nixon and his coverup of the Watergate burglary. She will have to face a Republican Party that has largely caved in to Trump’s lie — enabling and encouraging it. Baker’s Republican Party never aligned itself with Nixon’s lies. Meanwhile, Cheney’s career has suffered and her life and the lives of her family have been threatened. The criminal acts for which Richard Nixon was responsible — while serious enough to undermine the integrity of the White House and compromise our system of government — pale relative to Trump’s. Nixon tried to cover up a third-rate burglary. Trump tried to overthrow our system of government. The January 6 insurrection was not an isolated event. It was part of a concerted effort by Trump to use his lie that the 2020 election was stolen as a means to engineer a coup, while whipping up anger and distrust among his supporters toward our system of government. Yet not a shred of evidence has ever been presented to support Trump’s claim that voter fraud affected the outcome of the 2020 election.Consider (to take but one example) Trump’ phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he pressured Raffensperger to change the presidential vote count in Georgia in order to give Trump more votes than Biden: “All I want to do is this,” Trump told Raffensperger in a recorded phone call. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.” Trump threatened Raffensperger with criminal liability if he did not do so. Trump’s actions appear to violate 18 U.S.C. § 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and 18 U.S.C. § 1512, obstruction of Congress.   The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into these activities. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that the Justice Department will “follow the facts and the law wherever they may lead.” As with Watergate, the facts will almost certainly lead to the person who then occupied the Oval Office. This week’s televised committee hearings are crucial to educating the public and setting the stage for the Justice Department’s prosecution. Federal district court Judge David Carter in a civil case brought against the Committee by John Eastman, Trump’s lawyer and adviser in the coup attempt, has set the framework for the hearings. Judge Carter found that it was “more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” and concluded that Trump and Eastman “launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history […] The illegality of the plan was obvious.”Those who claim that a president cannot be criminally liable for acts committed while in office apparently forget that Richard Nixon avoided prosecution only because he was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford. Those who argue that Trump should not be criminally liable because no president in American history has been criminally liable, overlook the fact that no president in history has staged an attempted coup to change the outcome of an election. Without accountability for these acts, Trump’s criminality opens wide the door to future presidents and candidates disputing election outcomes and seeking to change them — along with ensuing public distrust, paranoia, and divisiveness. Liz Cheney bears a burden far heavier than Howard Baker bore almost a half-century ago. Please watch this Thursday’s Jan. 6 Committee televised hearings. And please join me in appreciating the public service of Liz Cheney. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

My informal weekly coffee with Heather Lofthouse (the executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action, and my former student), discussing the past week.In this morning’s klatch we discuss whether Congress will do anything to restrict gun purchases (Biden’s passionate plea notwithstanding), how long America will be willing to supply weapons to Ukraine, the likely outcome from next week’s hearings by the House’s special committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, the winner of the national spelling bee, and the importance of drinking coffee. Know someone who might want to listen to this conversation over coffee? Please share. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

I was an intern in Bobby Kennedy’s Senate office during the summer of 1967. The civil rights movement was still gaining ground, and Kennedy was crusading for economic and political justice.My job that summer had nothing to do civil rights or justice, though. And it required only half a brain. I was in charge of Kennedy’s signature machine. The machine’s pen mechanically scrawled “Robert F. Kennedy” on thousands of photographs and constituent letters each day. I had to make sure the photos and letters were lined up properly so the “Robert F. Kennedy” signature would appear at the right place.Halfway through the summer I was deathly bored — so bored that I started composing mock letters to friends (“Congratulations, Mr. Dworkin, on possessing the largest nose in the entire Hudson Valley. Yours sincerely, Robert F. Kennedy”). One day, though, I was standing in front of an elevator in the Senate office building when it opened to reveal the man himself. Bobby Kennedy stepped out — surrounded by supercharged aides, all of whom were talking to him simultaneously. As Kennedy moved into the corridor, he saw me and took half a step in my direction. “How are ya, Bob? How’s the summer going?” he asked, and gave me a toothy grin. Before I had a chance to respond, he was whisked away. No matter. That he actually knew my name was more than enough to keep me going through the rest of the summer — and for years to come. It doesn’t take much to inspire; sometimes a smile and a hello, and remembering someone’s name will do. It didn’t take much to inspire a twenty-one-year-old in 1967, even if that twenty-one-year-old was spending his time running a signature machine. It was an era when America was moving forward. It didn’t require much to instill values that stayed with that twenty-one-year-old for the rest of his life; interning for Bobby Kennedy was enough. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Bobby Kennedy:“Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge the United States of America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”Sometimes I wonder where America would be today had Bobby Kennedy not been murdered the following June — the evening after winning California’s Democratic primary. I believe he would have been nominated for president that summer and elected president the following November, instead of Richard Nixon. Had that happened, I tell myself, America would be in a far better place now. But am I fooling myself? And what purpose is to be served with an “if only” memory, anyway? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

After a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida in February 2018, that left 17 people dead, JPMorgan Chase — America’s largest bank — publicly distanced itself from the firearm industry. Its chief financial officer reassured the media that the bank’s relationships with gunmakers “have come down significantly and are pretty limited.” That was then. This past September, a new Texas law went into effect that bans state agencies from working with any firm that “discriminates” against companies or individuals in the gun industry. The law requires banks and other professional service firms submit written affirmations to the Texas attorney general that they comply with the law. What was JPMorgan to do? Sticking with its high-minded policy of “significantly” reducing business with gun manufacturers would result in exclusion from Texas’s lucrative bond market. Texas sold more than $58 billion of bonds in 2020, and is currently the second largest bond market after California. (I’ll come back to California in a moment.)JPMorgan Chase had been among the top bond underwriters for Texas. Between 2015 and 2020, the bank underwrote 138 Texas bond deals, raising $19 billion for the state, and generating nearly $80 million in fees for JPMorgan, according to Bloomberg. Yet since the new Texas law went into effect in September, the bank has been shut out of working for the state. JPMorgan’s dilemma since Texas enacted its law has been particularly delicate because its chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been preaching the doctrine of corporate social responsibility — repeatedly telling the media that big banks like JPMorgan Chase have social duties to the communities they serve. So what did JPMorgan decide to do about financing gun manufacturers, in light of the new Texas law? It caved to Texas. (Never mind that last year, the bank’s board granted Dimon a special $52.6-million award — which is almost three-quarters of the fees the bank received from underwriting Texas bonds between 2015 and 2020.) On May 13 — one day before the Buffalo mass shooting and less than two weeks before the Texas shooting — JPMorgan sent a letter to the attorney general of Texas, declaring that the bank’s policy “does not discriminate against or prevent” it from doing business “with any firearm entity or firearm trade association based solely on its status as a firearm entity or firearm trade association,” adding that “these commercial relationships are important and valuable.”The Texas law barring the state from doing business with any firm that discriminates against the gun industry is the first of its kind in the country. But similar laws — described by gun industry lobbyists as “FIND” laws, or firearm industry nondiscriminatory legislation — are now working their way through at least 10 statehouses, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. This year, Wyoming passed a law that allows gun companies to sue banks and other firms that refuse to do business with them.The lesson here is twofold. First, pay no attention to assertions by big banks or any other large corporations about their “social responsibilities” to their communities. When social responsibility requires sacrificing profits, it magically disappears — even when it entails financing gunmakers.But secondly, no firm should be penalized by pro-gun states like Texas for trying to be socially responsible. How to counter Texas’s law? Lawmakers in progressive states like California (whose bond market is even larger than Texas’s) should immediately enact legislation that bars the state from dealing with any firm that finances the gun industry. In other words: Big banks like JPMorgan should have to choose: either finance gunmakers and get access to the Texas bond market, or don’t finance them and gain access to the even larger California bond market.What do you think? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe