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- [00:00]
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- [00:28]
Marc Maron
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- [00:59]
Adam Grant
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- [01:58]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Donald Trump appears to have made at least $5 billion in the eight months since he was inaugurated. Any thoughts on his crypto holdings?
- [02:10]
Robert Reich
This is pure corruption. Let's not beat around the bush when history is written about this administration. One of the first lines in the first paragraph is going to be about the extraordinary payoffs that that were made to Donald Trump.
- [02:28]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
I'm Joanna Coles, this is the Daily Beast podcast and thank you, thank you, thank you for all your comments on Dr. John Gartner's. Diagnosis of Donald Trump as having dementia. Many of you found his arguments and his medical terms extremely convincing. Several of you suggested other doctors we could talk to. So we're reaching out so we don't just have one person's diagnosis that we're relying on. But as many of you pointed out, what was convincing about Dr. John Gartner was just the sense that he's been diagnosing President Trump, who's been in the public eye for so long that there are lots of moments to judge him against now, five years, 10 years and 30 years ago, which is what doctors need and often don't have. But in this case, they actually do. So thank you for your comments on YouTube. Let's get into today's guest, who is the same age as the president and just as busy as the president, but he's busy on substack on YouTube. He's been making documentaries, he's writing books to make sure we know what a catastrophe is happening to the America he knows and loves. Today I'm talking to Robert Reich, who was Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton. He was advisor to presidents from President Ford to President Obama. He's a beloved Berkeley professor and he was the subject of this year's documentary the Last Class. He's also the force behind inequality, media and of a new memoir coming up short, referring to his height. He's only 4 foot 11, but he towers above most of us. A Memoir of My America. Robert Reich, let's get into it. Robert, you were labour secretary. What are you making of this attempt to what appears to be obfuscate the numbers around inflation and around jobs?
- [04:26]
Robert Reich
Well, it's crazy from the standpoint of the economy. You've got millions of actors who need accurate information about the direction the economy is going in if they're going to make decisions about investing or building or hiring. And if they don't get that information, they're going to be risk adverse. And that's exactly what's happening. A lot of people who otherwise might be hiring have slowed down their hiring enormously because they don't know what's going on. Coupled with the fact that there are tariffs, there is, you know, this kind of arbitrary and capricious set of decision making coming out of the White House. Well, again, it all isit deters economic investment, which is bad for everyone. And you can't shoot the messenger. I mean, if Donald Trump doesn't like what's coming out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics or he doesn't like the Fed's decisions on interest rates, mere attempts by the White House to shoot the messenger send a very, very dangerous signal to the rest of the economy, not just the United States economy, but the world economy. And that is you can't trust the American dollar. You can't trust where the dollar is going. You can't, there's nobody on the anti inflation beat. There's no cop on the beat. And this is all again, the markets have reacted. They will continue to react badly when Donald Trump and to the extent that Donald Trump tries to shut off information or kill or shoot the messenger and.
- [06:12]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
What do you make of his suggestion that public companies stop reporting quarterly earnings and in fact move to twice a year every six months? I mean, I think I know a lot of companies that would prefer that. But I'm curious to get your point of view, Joanna.
- [06:29]
Robert Reich
Honestly, there are very few things that I agree with Donald Trump on, but that may be one. When I used to be much closer to watching the economy every minute and I was Labor Secretary and before that I was at the Federal Trade Commission, I actually suggested that companies have to take a longer term view of what they're doing. And these quarterly reports force them into a very, very, very narrow, insular and kind of kind of a view that, that runs against the long term interest of the economy. So this is not necessarily a bad position to take.
- [07:11]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
And the markets seem to have now priced in the volatility, don't they? I mean the stock market is up 15% this year.
- [07:22]
Robert Reich
Well, it's a very good question about whether they've priced in volatility. I don't think markets price in arbitrary and capricious and impossible to predict decision making. Volatility is one thing. Yes. I mean there is going to be a lot of volatility whenever there's any kind of a change in administration, whenever there is a lot of tumult in the world given Israel and given Putin and given everything else that's going on. But arbitrary and capricious decision making really is something that the markets cannot price in because again, it's outside anybody's control and outside anybody's potential vision all that they're pricing in. And I worry that they're going to price in more and more of this is uncertainty.
- [08:20]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Robert, it's no secret that Donald Trump appears to have made at least $5 billion in the eight months since he was inaugurated. Any thoughts on his crypto holdings?
- [08:35]
Robert Reich
This is pure corruption. Let's not beat around the bush when history is written about this administration. One of the first lines in the first paragraph is going to be about the extraordinary payoffs that were made to Donald Trump, some of them violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution that says, you know, foreign powers cannot pay off a public official. But some of them are just nothing but attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump. And crypto has opened the floodgates to that kind of currying of favor. It is a scandal, but unfortunately there's so many scandals with regard to this administration, it's difficult to come out, to really focus on one who should actually.
- [09:22]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Be policing that most effectively, is that the sec.
- [09:27]
Robert Reich
Well, the SEC should be doing that, and the Commodity Futures Trading Corporation could be doing it. The SEC is now run by a Trump lapdog who has huge crypto holdings and has basically allowed crypto to do whatever it wants to do. And the crypto industry has become so rich that it's paying off members of Congress in terms of campaign contributions, including a number of Democrats. And so it is, you know, you have this kind of a doom loop with regard to what it can get away with. So, you know, the whole thing is a market that is based upon nothing but expectations that some bigger fool is going to come along and buy even more crypto that you can get rid of. This is like the tulip craze in Holland. This is, this is, this is just a matter of when is it going to explode. You know, we all remember what happened in 2008 with regard to many.
- [10:41]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Oh, the credit swaps.
- [10:43]
Robert Reich
Yes. Many assets on Wall street that were derivatives of derivatives and derivatives of derivatives. And you can't. You can go for a while and you can build and build and build, but eventually you can't. And eventually somebody gets left holding the bag. That's what's going to happen with crypto. But crypto is even worse because the only purpose of crypto, as far as I can see, is illicit. Is hiding illicit, illegal, often immoral transactions that violate all sorts of international laws and rules. It also uses up a lot of. A lot of electricity, a lot of environmental damage, a lot of water from areas of the country that don't really have all that much. There's no redeeming social value in crypto at all.
- [11:40]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
The subtitle for your book is A Memoir of America. But what is America at this point?
- [11:48]
Robert Reich
Point?
- [11:48]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
What should we be most concerned about?
- [11:51]
Robert Reich
Well, I am most concerned, Joanna, about the loss of freedom, the loss of our rights, constitutional rights, everything from the First Amendment, the right to speak, the right to assemble, the right to due process, the right not to be Arrested without due process, the right not to be disappeared off the street streets without due process. We have a constitution that provides a lot of, a lot of guarantees, a lot of bulwarks against a rogue government. We have a rogue government, but we also are discovering that we don't really have a mechanism, a set of mechanisms to guard those constitutional guarantees. The federal district courts have been doing, I think, a credible job, but it's very hard for individual judges, and the administration keeps on appealing those cases. The Supreme Court, who knows? I mean, it's, so far they've allowed Trump to do pretty much what he wants to do, beginning with John Roberts. Totally indefensible position that a president can get away with doing anything the president wants as long as it's arguably part of his official duties. But there is also a failure of the leadership class in America. And by leadership class, I'm talking about everyone from the people who run media companies to religious leaders to people who are university presidents who keep telling me they don't dare speak out. You know, there's a kind of overall fear that has been that has descended upon people who have responsibility in this country and their responsibility, excuse me for expressing my view here, but their responsibility is not just to their organizations like ABC or CBS or Columbia University or their law firm firm. Their responsibility, if they're leaders, true leaders, is to the country as a whole, including our democracy, including the rule of law, including the Constitution. And so that to me is also a real, real concern.
- [14:20]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
So you mentioned that university presidents are telling you that they're fearful. Clearly, business leaders are fearful, too. I've had several conversations with President prominent CEOs who just don't want to bedon't want their heads above the radar. How do weor what should leadership look like at this point? And I mean, one of the complexities I think is that a, he wasdonald Trump was elected. Right. And secondly, we say the First Amendment has been attacked, but there are still plenty of people asking, included, able to speak freely about what we're concerned is happening. So how do you manage to balance all these contradictions?
- [15:05]
Robert Reich
Well, I don't think there are many contradictions here. I mean, first of all, we don't have any idea how much speech right now is being chilled. We know that a lot of people left, for example, CBS, CBS News, 60 Minutes, they resigned. We know people resigned from, from the editorial board of the Washington Post. We know we can see the resignations. We just don't know what they have agreed to suppress or what kind of Suppression went on that led them to resignation. So when you say we have free speech, I'm sorry, we just don't know how free it is right now. And when we see Jimmy Kimmel and, you know, the executives of Disney and others caving in, it's a pretty awful set of circumstances and an abdication of responsibility. I was talking recently to a business leader who was very upset about what's going on. And I said to him, well, what are you going to do? Are you going to put your name to a petition? Are you going to stand up and really be counted? And he said, oh, no, no, I can't do that. I have too much at stake. And I said, what do you mean you have too much at stake? He said, well, I have, you know, deals that are pending. Well, the more people, Joanna, who have positions of responsibility and positions of leadership, who say, well, I don't dare put my head up because I'm going to be, you know, I'm fearful that I'm going to be targeted by this administration. They are complicit. They are enabling this kind of tyranny.
- [16:44]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
So why don't the Democrats put together a bunch of CEOs so there's some strength in numbers and get them to speak out and say this is unacceptable?
- [16:54]
Robert Reich
Well, I wish the Democrats would, but Democrats themselves, if you're talking about congressional Democrats, many of them are nervous. They depend on a lot of big money for their campaigns. They depend on CEOs and Wall Street. They don't want to bite the hands that feed them. They certainly don't want to put the hands that feed them in an awkward position. So I'm not sure that a lot of Democrats have the will to do anything like you're suggesting.
- [17:21]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Well, good Lord, if Democrats don't have the will to do it, then what is to become of us?
- [17:26]
Robert Reich
Well, exactly. I mean, you know, there's an old saying. We are the leaders we've been waiting for.
- [17:33]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Right. It's a good phrase.
- [17:35]
Robert Reich
Yeah. I never really paid much attention to that phrase. It's always seemed to me kind of idealistic. But at a time like this, it may be the case. It may be that we average people who are not cloaked with the offices of formal authority, who are not presidents and CEOs, and who are not heads of organizations and members of Congress or, you know, the presidents of universities, maybe ordinary people have got to take more leadership responsibility here in this crisis. This is a catastrophe.
- [18:13]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
You mentioned the Washington Post, you mentioned Jimmy Kimmel, and obviously the big furor At Disney and abc. You mentioned cbs, all three of which are essentially legacy media. Is there an argument that actually those, each of those brands are much less relevant than they were and conversation actually has merely gone on to social media platforms. It's gone on to YouTube, where you have a podcast. You have more than a million followers on your YouTube podcast, which, frankly, is more readers than the Washington Post has every day. So is this actually a sense that the media is just changing, the conversation is changing, and it's going elsewhere? I mean, you think of the top 10 podcasts, you have crooked media with speechwriters that used to work for Obama. You have the Midas touch who hate Donald Trump. So it's not as if criticism of the president and his cabinet is not out there.
- [19:15]
Robert Reich
Well, Joanne, I wish I had, but what sounds like your optimism, but I fear that we're on it. We're on a path now that is very, very dangerous. And, you know, it's a slippery slope in terms of where we are. I mean, if you talk about social media, who owns social media? I mean, you have Elon Musk and X. You have, you know, Jeff Bezos, who owns a lot of, I mean, Amazon itself, Amazon prime. He's working on a big movie with.
- [19:50]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
The Melania, with the first lady Melania.
- [19:53]
Robert Reich
You know, you've got Mark Zuckerberg, you've got a lot of people who have shown absolutely no courage, or even worse, they're giving, you know, they're fighting, they're competing to kiss Trump's derriere. I mean, you know, look at what the Apple, the head of Apple gave him. A solid 24 karat gold. What was that, a bribe? I mean, I don't even know how to characterize that. So you are correct to the extent that there are these fissures, these places. You know, I do my substack every day, and I try to do whatever I can, but these are the exceptions. Maybe they're green shoots of something in the future. I hope they are. But it's not just the legacy media that have failed us. It is also, you know, these billionaires who are in charge of a lot of social media who are going over to the dark side.
- [20:51]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Robert, what did you think when you saw the tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, like Sergey Brin sitting at that table with Donald Trump. I want to come on to the dinner at Windsor Castle in a minute where they were sat again with Donald Trump and this time the King of England. But what did you make of that first tech dinner where they went round the table and everybody was paying homage to the President.
- [21:18]
Robert Reich
Pure greed. I mean, I don't think, you know, my first impulse was to say, well, you know, I've seen something like this before. I've been at those dinners when I was Secretary of Labor. I've been, you know, I've been surrounded by business leaders who, who they love the pomp and the circumstance. They love to be invited to the White House. They love to feel important. But with Trump, you have really only, it seems to me, one major incentive, and that is they don't want to be on his bad side. They don't want to earn his wrath. They want to be on his good side because he's such a, you know, he's such an authoritarian. He's so unpredictable. He is operating in a world in which he could say, tomorrow, I really don't like you, Apple, and I'm going to do everything I can to undermine you. And suddenly Apple stock goes, you know, plummets. Well, that's. In other words, I understand why these tech leaders and billionaires are enabling him, but I don't think they need to go nearly that far. I wish they had more backbone. They're earning enough money, they don't have to be greedy. I wish they understood that they. This is a time for courage. This is a time where everybody in this country who has any degree of responsibility must exercise real courage. History is not going to be kind to these people if they don't.
- [22:49]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
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- [23:48]
Robert Reich
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Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
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- [23:55]
Marc Maron
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- [23:57]
Adam Grant
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Robert Reich
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- [24:01]
Adam Grant
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- [24:04]
Marc Maron
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- [24:53]
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- [25:23]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
And we're back talking to Robert Reich. What I'm trying to understand is if you're Tim Cook and the practicality is you've got hundreds of thousands of people working for you, you've got a massive global business, what else would should Tim Cook be doing? I mean, if the value to the President is having Tim Cook sit there and say flattering things about you, is that actually just pragmatic business manners?
- [25:58]
Robert Reich
Well, obviously a big piece of it is business. Yes, business. You know, Tim Cook's stock options and the his fiduciary obligation to Apple shareholders. And I understand that we're in a world in which, you know, shareholder capitalism predominates over what we used to have, which is stakeholder capitalism. But we also have enormous media consolidation. You know, in the 1980s, we had something in the order of 95, 98 media outlets competing for about 90% of the media market. Now we're down to five big leviathans competing for 90% of the media market. So combine those two. That degree of consolidation, a shareholder capitalism, and also the fact that you've got an amazing amount of money at the top now, you know these, these people like Tim Cook and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, they are not just billionaires, they are multi, hundreds of billionaires. They are people who have a lot at stake. And if I were being very cynical, and I hate to even be this cynical, but I'm going to say it anyway, I'm not sure they have a deep dedication to democracy. They may have so much money that they may worry about majorities coming along and taking it away in terms of a wealth tax or something else. You know, you put these factors together, Joanna, media concentration, shareholder dominance and the wealth of the dominant people in the media business and in many businesses, and you have a tinderbox that can easily be lit up by a demagogue like Donald Trump.
- [27:58]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
So what would you have them do instead? How do you show leadership if you're trying on the one hand to balance a president, a capricious president and a cabinet that is unpredictable? I mean, you saw this weekend the extraordinary. You have Howard Lutnick coming out and saying, oh, it's $100,000 for an 8 visa and it's every year. And then you have the White House press secretary coming out and saying, no, no, it's a one off and it's only for new visas. So there seems to be some chaos in the way obviously things are being run. How should you manage this if you are managing a business? I understand your point about shareholder value and stakeholder value. But if you're in the real politic of trying to manage this now, if you were Tim Cook, what would you do? Would you say, no, I'm not coming from for dinner?
- [28:46]
Robert Reich
Or if I were Tim Cook, Yes. I would not necessarily kiss his dairy air by coming for dinner. And I wouldn't give him gold 24 karat gold awards. I would get together with other CEOs quietly and have a common front, have some agreement. You know, we're in this together. The future of our democracy is very intimately related to the future of our businesses and vice versa. If I were a university president, if I were Harvard, Harvard is doing a pretty good job right now. But I'd get together with all other higher education and say we have to have a united front because this divider in chief, this demagogue in chief is trying to divide us and divided we are very, very weak. If we can get together, we're much stronger. Same thing with law firms, same with cultural institutions. Together there is a possibility of stopping this. But divided, there's almost no possibility. Everybody has an incentive to do the Opposite, everybody has an incentive to try to appease this tyrant.
- [29:55]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Well, and the more you appease the tyrant, the more they come after. Right. I mean, that's the one thing history has shown us that actually the worst thing you can. Can do to a bully is give him the lunch money. Because then the next day he comes back and he wants twice as much.
- [30:08]
Robert Reich
Exactly. I mean, Neville Chamberlain, you know, made a point historically that I think that it's important for us to remember. You cannot appease a dictator. He does come back asking for more. And the problem is, as long as he is able to divide and conquer, then everybody really becomes much, much weaker.
- [30:31]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Well, of course, what they say about academics is that the knives are so sharp because the stakes are so small. The idea of pulling together a group of presidents of universities who could agree seems somewhat fanciful. Do you think realistically you could do that? I love the notion of it, as I do. Similarly, the idea of bringing all these tech chiefs together, and yet the. The tech chiefs themselves are frequently suing each other. We know that lots of them don't speak to others, so it's not as if they have. AI Mean, they may be in the same business, but they have lots of things that would serve them well if another went down. Aren't they all hoping that the spotlight, Trump's wrath, just falls on someone else, not them?
- [31:15]
Robert Reich
Well, I think it's worse than that, Joanna. They're actually competing for his. For benefits from him, for his, you know, not. They're not trying to avoid his wrath. They're actually competing for his warmth. And what you say about these institutions getting together, whether they're private sector, public sector or not, for profit, you're absolutely right under normal circumstances, but we're no longer in normal circumstances. This is a national emergency. This is a catastrophe, not only for the United States, but for the world. And if we have a leadership class in this country, if we have people who have positions of responsibility, their responsibility extends, it seems to me, in a crisis like this, to the nation and to the world.
- [32:06]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
What do you see the worst impacts being right now on global affairs and the shifting of the global order, which has suddenly been thrown into disarray by Donald Trump?
- [32:20]
Robert Reich
Well, the same point applies. That is, other countries have got to get together, and I think the European Union is doing a credible job. But the European Union needs to get together with Canada and Japan and Australia and all of these countries that had traditionally been allies of the United States. Where Donald Trump is making no is basically saying, you are no longer allies. Of the United States. They should ally themselves together, understanding that at least temporarily, they cannot rely on the United States. They are all in some danger from Putin. They are in some danger from Xi. They need tothey need to use each other and rely on each other rather than trying to, I don't know, keep in the good graces of Donald Trump or avoid his wrath. I mean, again, this goes back to the same theme. You cannot appease a dictator.
- [33:20]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
And what was your thought when you heard that Bob Iger had made the decision with his, as he made it very clear to, to say his number two, Dana Walden, to suspend Jimmy Kimmel's show indefinitely? There does seem to have been a backlash to that. Today we had 400 celebrities signing, getting together and doing exactly what you say, complaining about the decision. You've got people calling for a boycott. Oddly, late night comedians, not people that you would think would have actually a close fraternity, seem to have gotten together and supported Jimmy Kimmel. Does that decision, do you think there is any way out of that for Disney in a, in a good way, for the freedom of speech at all?
- [34:09]
Robert Reich
Well, if Disney reversed itself and apologized and rehired Jimmy Kimmel and said we made a terrible mistake and we should not have been intimidated by the fcc, that might be helpful. But it may be too late for, for that. And by the way, for all these comedians to get together and support each other is great. But I think more importantly for people, average Americans who are really concerned and worried and feel afraid of what's going on, they should cancel their Disney plus Hulu subscriptions and instead take, take the money and put it into public broadcasting.
- [34:52]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
That's an interesting idea. Yes. I saw John Oliver on his HBO show last night was demanding people cancel their subscriptions. But the idea of putting it into publicly funded media is a great idea. I can tell the quality of my WNYC in the morning has been somewhat impacted, actually.
- [35:11]
Robert Reich
Of course, I mean, these public broadcasting stations are, you know, in the big cities in San Francisco and New York. I think they'll do fine. But it's the smaller cities that really are being terribly impacted. Some of the public broadcasting has to be, is being shut down or limited. So take your money away from Disney and Hulu and put it into public broadcasting.
- [35:38]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
You're in the Bay Area, you live in San Francisco, which is a fascinating mix of California liberal politics and then enormous wealth, enormous concentration of billionaires and tech overlords. What are you seeing politically from the Democrats in that neighborhood that makes you feel hopeful, if anything?
- [36:04]
Robert Reich
Well, you know, I love Nancy Pelosi because she is a fighter. She was the person who basically got convinced Barack Obama to try for the Affordable Care act, and she doesn't let up. She's in her mid-80s and she's continuing to fight every day. So there are a lot of fighters in the Bay Area. They may be wealthy, but they still are fighting the good fight for average working people.
- [36:34]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Are you seeing any Democrats break through in terms of the next generation? I appreciate your support for Nancy Pelosi, but she's definitely of a generation now that can't lead forward, I think.
- [36:45]
Robert Reich
Yeah, well, there are others. I mean, Ro Khanna is a good friend and he is here in the Bay Area. He is the Silicon Valley representative to Congress and there are many, many others. I'm actually quite encouraged about the backbench of the Democrat Party, particularly if you include the governors. There are some very, very attractive governors out there. And I don't mean only Gavin Newsom. I think JB Pritzker is doing a very, very good job. And Wes Moore is standing up, ironically, what Donald Trump is doing with regard to trying to squeeze the red state governors to get more, you know, more redistricting that gives the Republicans more seats in Congress. Oh, the gerrymandering and also using ICE raids in various places. I mean, he is making some of these Democratic governors into real. He's pushing them into heroic kinds of positions where they're taking very tough stuff stands. And I think that's going to. That's very important for the future.
- [37:56]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Talking about the future, you've just finished a documentary about your many years as a teacher at Berkeley. What have you observed about students recently as opposed to when you started teaching?
- [38:13]
Robert Reich
That's a good question, Joanna. I love teaching. I. I really miss it. But I just had reached a point where I thought I'm getting old and I can't do quite as well as I was doing before. And so I should put a stop to this.
- [38:30]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Well, if I can just jut in here and say, it's a very good documentary. Every teacher, I think, would love to watch this because your heart and your enthusiasm for teaching comes over, as do the many students that come up to you and say, remember me, class of 1979? And you're like, I have no idea.
- [38:48]
Robert Reich
Coming up to me every day.
- [38:49]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Yeah, I have no idea who you are, but it's nice to see you. But has there been a change in students over the years?
- [38:59]
Robert Reich
Well, when I started to teach in 1981, students were very, very excited and they had a lot of ambition. But I think that the change I've seen, my most recent cohort of students, and I retired the year before last, but I'm still sneaking in and doing classes. The most recent cohort of students, I would say, if one can generalize about these things, I mean, generations, very difficult to generalize. But Gen Z, we're talking about people who are 50 years younger than I am or more. They are understandably very worried not only about what's happening in the country and the world, very upset about the loss of and potential loss of freedoms in this country, extremely upset about what's happening in Gaza and the enabling that America is doing and the gaze, you know, giving Netanyahu all of this military might to undertake a form of genocide. Let's not mince words. So they are very, very concerned about that. And they're also very activist. They are probably the most activist generation, cohort of students I've taught and dedicated. I mean, they, I said to a bunch of them the other day, you know, you are right at the point where democracy and artificial intelligence and global climate change, you know, are all impinging on the existential future of this country. How do you feel? And they said, we feel excited and we feel, you know, revved up. And I said, well, that's good because we need you and we are dependent on you. And then I thought about it a little bit and I said to them, you know, if everything were good, if everything were settled, if everything were, you know, if we didn't have any problems with climate change or democracy or artificial intelligence or nuclear proliferation or any of the other nightmare scenarios that we have around us, it would be pretty boring for you, wouldn't it? I mean, you're starting your careers. And they said, yes, yes, exactly. We are facing the largest crises in modern history and they're excited by it and God bless them.
- [41:37]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Robert, we're going to take a break for some ads.
- [41:42]
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- [42:14]
Marc Maron
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- [43:14]
Gardeneers/Shopify Advertiser
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- [43:44]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
And we're back talking to Robert Reich and how did they square them with this whole generation that very much were brought to life by Charlie Kirk? Because you're talking to one bunch of young people, but there's also another bunch of young people who are either not in the college system or feel that the college system didn't listen to to them and are looking for leadership in a different way.
- [44:10]
Robert Reich
Well, there are actually several different groups if you want to drill it down. There are the non college young people and they really do have a reason to be upset and angry about the fact that the system is rigged against them. I mean if you don't have a college degree, it's very difficult to get get into the middle class in this system and only about 40% of them have or will have college degrees. 60% of them don't and they are at risk. And then you have another group who are very kind of religious and evangelical. Some of them I know and some of them are Trump supporters. Some of them had been Charlie Kirk supporters. They are, they feel marginalized in many campuses. They feel that the country has rejected religion, and the data do show a tremendous drop in religiosity in the United States. But I. You know what I tell my students, and I truly believe it, Joanna, is the best way of learning anything is to talk to people who disagree with you. And so I urge my students to find and even cherish people who are of different views than they are and sit down and have conversations and eloquent listening, actually listening eloquently to what other people say and repeat what they say, and try to understand their artificial arguments and try to understand where you might be wrong. Well, that is the art of learning. And teaching is giving people that art of learning.
- [45:57]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
So you've finished teaching. You seem more prolific than ever on Cafe Clatch and your YouTube podcasts. What else are you doing? Do you have another book coming out? What is your. How do you spend your time? Robert?
- [46:12]
Robert Reich
Well, I do a substack every day, an essay. Some people say to me, you know, you're pushing 80 years old. How do you write every single day? And I said, well, what else am I going to do? And I have ideas for books. And we have, yes, I'm working with a very talented group of young people on putting out videos. My son Sam, about 10 years ago, got me interested in social media, and thank goodness, because I'm not sure I would break through to young people if I were still writing books. He was very. He was very kind, if not a little bit condescending to me. Ten years ago, he said, dad, you know, if you really want to reach my generation, I respect you for writing all the books you've written. But, you know, we don't necessarily read that much. And after I got over my depression, somebody said I did with a few other people, we started this nonprofit called Inequality Media Civic Action, and we do a lot of videos and we do a lot of other movies and explainers, and I think that's how to reach a lot of young people.
- [47:29]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
All right, so we have a lot of people that watch the podcast, listen to the podcast, and I think it's fair to say are feeling some despair and anxiety about where we are at the moment. As a final note, how would you encourage people to get involved, to get engaged in trying to change things, as you say, be the leaders that you want to have?
- [47:54]
Robert Reich
Well, I say to people, number one, if you are despairing, depressed, angry, stressed, I completely understand. I mean, how can you not be? But activism, activism, being an activist against this kind of tyranny is the best antidote to all of these feelings. So get out there. I mean, you know, call your members of Congress every single day. Keep the White House and the congressional switchboard totally occupied. Beyond that, go into your community and protect people who are very vulnerable to the extent that you can make bad trouble. Also, you know, write your members of Congress, write your local newspapers, boycott companies like we talked about, abc. You know, be an activist in terms of consumer activism and consumer boycotts, you know, there's a long list, and I've on my substack, every month or so, I put out another long list of things that you can do. Nobody should feel that they have lack of agency. This is a time when we all have to be leaders in terms of mobilizing, organizing, energizing people around us who are even more demoralized or who have decided that the best strategy is to keep their heads down and not even read the news. No, that's not the best strategy. The best strategy is to be an activist.
- [49:34]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Okay, well, I don't know if there are any local newspapers left to write to, but I love your idea of leading, leaning into your own agency and writing to your congresspeople. They are one forgets that they are there to represent you and that you can make a difference. Robert Reich, thank you very much for what I know is your very precious time because you're now going off to write another substat, you're going off to make another video, you're going off to lead another group of young people into the future. But we really appreciate you spending time with us.
- [50:07]
Robert Reich
Well, thank you very much, Joanna. I appreciate it.
- [50:13]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
No signs of dementia with Robert Reich, even as he approaches his 80th birthday. And I can strongly recommend his documentary the Last Class, in which he basically looks over his life as a teacher. And for anyone who's been a teacher, who wants to be a teacher, it's a very moving inspector. Inspiring documentary, and I'm sure there are lots of students out there who've been through his classes who will thoroughly enjoy this documentary. Anyway, if you have been, thank you for joining us. We appreciate your support. We are independent media, after all. I'll be back tomorrow with Michael Wolf for our second episode of Inside Trump's Head this week. Don't forget to share this podcast with your friends, with your enemies, with your colleagues at work. The point is to have a discussion. You can argue with us, that's absolutely fine and please do in the comments, or you can agree with us. That's nice, too. If you have been. We appreciate your support. And though we haven't seen her this week as the first lady would have us say bebeast. Thank you to our Beebeast members. Connie Rutherford.
- [51:25]
Gardeneers/Shopify Advertiser
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- [53:00]
Robert Reich
Want more great listens?
- [53:01]
Marc Maron
Check out our comedy podcast the Last.
- [53:03]
Robert Reich
Laugh and our Star Studded the Daily Beast podcast@thedailybeast.com podcasts if you enjoyed this.
- [53:09]
Gardeneers/Shopify Advertiser
Episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your.
- [53:15]
Podcast Host (Joanna Coles)
Podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline.
- [53:19]
Gardeneers/Shopify Advertiser
Head to thedailybeast.com membership podcast and sign up today.