8/26/25: Robert Reich joins David, Trump admin goes Communist

Summary

---

The David Pakman Show – August 26, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, David Pakman dives into a historic moment: the Trump administration’s interventionist economic moves, sharply critiquing the president's unprecedented partial nationalization of private corporations, particularly Intel. The episode features a wide-ranging, urgent conversation with progressive thought leader and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who offers dire warnings about American democracy’s slide toward authoritarianism. Other major topics include the independence of the Federal Reserve, Trump’s fraught relationship with history and race, and broader concerns about democratic backsliding in the United States.

---

1. The Main Theme

Topic: The Trump Administration’s “Communist” Economic Policy Shift & The State of American Democracy

David Pakman opens by dissecting the Trump administration's startling new policy moves: the federal government purchasing equity stakes in private companies, a practice historically derided by Republicans as “socialism” or even “communism,” and now implemented by a Republican president himself. The stakes for democracy, the rule of law, and the future direction of both major parties are discussed at length, with Robert Reich providing expert analysis.

---

2. Key Discussion Points & Insights

A. Trump Administration Partial Nationalization of Intel – “Communism” by GOP Standards

(00:07–05:05)

• Pakman explains that President Trump’s administration bought a 10% stake in Intel, providing the struggling company with $10 billion in government funds in exchange for ownership.
• The GOP’s traditional line – accusing Democrats of socialism & communism for any state intervention – is starkly contrasted with Trump’s actual policy.
• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (clip): Signals more potential nationalizations, especially in defense industries (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Palantir).

"This is what we used to call Communism in the quaint old days when we were told Democrats are going to do this." – David Pakman, (00:09)

• Pakman notes the irony: MAGA supporters and Fox News are silent or supportive, demonstrating the principle-flipping when economic power and control are at stake.

Notable Quote

“Trump is doing what the right has spent decades fearmongering that the left would do. The federal government is going to start buying pieces of businesses and putting the government inside the boardrooms. That’s socialism. It’s communism. It’s Marxism. Just imagine if Bernie Sanders proposed this.” – David Pakman (05:05)

B. Underlying Motives: Trump’s Use of State Power

(05:05–09:59)

• Pakman argues the real driver is Trump’s need for loyalty and personal power more than any coherent ideology.
• State ownership of business is about extending Trump’s direct leverage and cultivating dependence among business leaders.

“Trump wants everybody dependent on him. [...] The more dependent on him that people and companies and media outlets and other countries are, the more power he has.” – David Pakman (06:02)

• Investors and business leaders are warning this creates new forms of political risk.

C. Trump’s Foreign Policy Gaffes & Authoritarian Leanings

(09:59–13:06)

• Discussion of a leaked account: Trump seemingly told Putin he believed the US and USSR were allies during the Cold War.
• Pakman calls attention to the basic historical ignorance at the top levels of government.

Notable Quote

“Trump is enamored with Putin because he’s a brutal dictator and an autocrat. Trump is in love with the idea that what he says goes, and that dictatorships are just far easier and more convenient for the dear leader than democracies.” – David Pakman (13:13)

D. Attack on Federal Reserve Independence: Lisa Cook Incident

(19:00–25:30)

• Trump attempts to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over unproven allegations to pressure for lower interest rates, which would benefit his administration economically.
• Pakman contextualizes the law against removing Fed governors without cause and frames this as a test of whether rule of law or executive overreach will prevail.

“This is a fight that is really about the Fed’s independence and Trump wanting to control it.” – David Pakman (21:25)

E. Trump’s Performance Politics on Race

(26:39–28:00)

• After years of racially-charged rhetoric, Trump delivers a bizarre Oval Office statement: “I love black people,” followed by inarticulate and inaccurate remarks about African history.
• Pakman points out the performative nature and lack of substantive policy, noting Trump has only a single Black high-level appointee.

Notable Quote

“That’s called a performance. That’s not a policy position. This is a guy who sees politics as marketing and is trying to sell himself to groups of voters he knows he has a problem with. That’s what this is about.” – David Pakman (27:48)

F. Interview: Robert Reich on Authoritarianism, the Democrats, and What Comes Next

(32:05–61:10)

1. Substack and Media Fragmentation

(32:05–36:17)

• Reich describes Substack as empowering but also worries about Americans no longer sharing common sources of news, hurting social cohesion.

“We lose a little bit of social glue… They want us to give up. They want us to leave the country. If we can’t leave, they’d like us to move out in our heads.” – Robert Reich (41:30)

2. The Authoritarian Slide

(36:17–41:01)

• Reich expresses mounting alarm at the speed and depth of democratic backsliding, emphasizing the fragility of American institutions.

“The slide into this kind of neo-fascism is very, very quick. And the underlying institutions of American democracy… are not nearly as strong, much more fragile than I thought they were.” – Robert Reich (37:28)

3. Should Progressives Stay and Fight or Flee?

(41:01–42:54)

• Reich recommends staying and fighting rather than giving in to hopelessness or emigration.

4. Democratic Party: Lack of Boldness and Identity

(42:54–48:02)

• Reich indicts the current Democratic Party as a “fundraising machine… worried about the suburban swing vote.” He laments the loss of working-class, populist energy.

“The Democratic Party is pretty much… almost doesn’t exist as a force. It’s a very, very big tent… but such a big tent that it almost doesn’t have any center. It doesn’t have any tent pole.” – Robert Reich (43:53)

5. Substance over Left/Center Debate

(46:21–48:02)

• Reich dismisses the “left versus center” debate as “the stupidest question,” arguing the true fight is between democracy and fascism.

6. What Should Progressive Economic Policy Be?

(48:02–50:35)

• Reich’s six-pronged policy: break up monopolies, strengthen labor unions, get big money out of politics, Medicare for all, focus on climate change, and advance fairness for working people.

7. Winning the Narrative Against the Right’s Culture Wars

(51:10–53:11)

• Reich urges Dems to push “economic populism” over “cultural populism”: empowering the vulnerable, fighting concentrated power, and making it about substantive justice rather than reactive messaging.
• Grades Democrats a C- or D for not boldly taking on entrenched wealth and power.

8. What Actions are Effective?

(53:11–57:36)

• Reich calls for every form of resistance: lawsuits, referenda, protest, civil disobedience, economic boycotts—tailored to avoid falling into authoritarian traps (e.g., centralized protests that trigger crackdowns).

9. Education and the Value of Higher Ed

(57:36–61:10)

• Reich reflects on the duality of the education system: elite privatization vs. public access, and cautions against the myth that a four-year college is the only route to a good life.

“We have bought into a very dangerous conceit that the only way you get into the middle class is if you have a four-year college degree. That’s crazy.” – Robert Reich (59:12)

---

3. Additional Segments & Noteworthy Quotes

Trump’s Delusional Rants and Gaffes

(63:35–70:37)

• Trump declares himself “President of Europe” in a public rant.
• Misstates the math on drug pricing (“reducing by 1400%”) and continues fundamental misconceptions on trade tariffs.
• Defends fossil fuels while denigrating renewables, and bungles references to the “comfort women” tragedy in Asia.

Bragging About Race

(26:39–28:00)

• Trump: "I love black people. And I did great with the vote, with the black people. But they say he's a racist, he's a racist. I said, really?" (26:39)

Open Attacks on Independent Institutions

(19:00–25:30)

• “If Trump succeeds here, […] This would be a warning shot to any independent regulator at the Fed or elsewhere. Your job security is only as good as your loyalty to Donald Trump.” – David Pakman (23:50)

---

4. Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |--- |--- | | Trump admin buys stake in Intel/Communist accusation | 00:07–05:05 | | GOP hypocrisy, power motivations | 05:05–09:59 | | Trump's confusion re: US/USSR/Putin | 09:59–13:06 | | Trump tries to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook | 19:00–25:30 | | Trump’s “I love black people” rant | 26:39–28:00 | | Interview with Robert Reich (media, authoritarianism, Dems) | 32:05–61:10 | | Trump: self-styled “President of Europe” & various delusions | 63:35–65:36 | | Trump’s math/science/trade gaffes | 70:20–71:52 | | Pakman’s closing and bonus show tease | 76:26–End |

---

5. Memorable Quotes (with Attribution & Timestamp)

• “This is what we used to call Communism in the quaint old days when we were told Democrats are going to do this.”
  — David Pakman, (00:09)

• "Trump is doing what the right has spent decades fear mongering that the left would do. The federal government is going to start buying pieces of businesses and putting the federal government inside of the boardrooms. That’s socialism, it’s communism, it’s Marxism. Just imagine if Bernie Sanders proposed this."
  — David Pakman, (05:05)

• “The slide into this kind of neo-fascism is very, very quick. And the underlying institutions of American democracy, well, they’ve been falling apart. They’re not nearly as strong, much more fragile than I thought they were.”
  — Robert Reich, (37:28)

• "We lose a little bit of social glue… They want us to give up. They want us to leave the country. If we can’t leave the country, they'd like us to basically say, nothing is going to change, it's hopeless, you're going to get it all. Well, we've got to continue to fight."
  — Robert Reich, (41:30)

• "I love black people. And I did great with the vote, with the black people. But they say he's a racist, he's a racist. I said, really?”
  — Donald Trump, (26:39)

• "The Democratic Party is pretty much… almost doesn’t exist as a force. It’s a very, very big tent… but such a big tent that it almost doesn’t have any center. It doesn’t have any tent pole.”
  — Robert Reich, (43:53)

• “The stupidest question I can imagine… there’s what kind of center is there between fascism and democracy? You don’t choose a middle point between fascism and democracy. There is none.”
  — Robert Reich, (46:36)

---

6. Tone and Style

True to Pakman’s style, the episode is sharp, acerbic, sometimes deadpan, at times darkly witty and openly alarmed by the pace of anti-democratic developments. Reich matches with a mixture of erudition, urgency, and direct moral clarity.

---

Summary Takeaways

• Historic Role Reversal: The Trump administration’s direct government buy-in to private corporations marks a dramatic policy about-face, openly contradicting core Republican rhetoric.
• Democratic Backsliding: There is widespread concern—articulated by both Pakman and Reich—that American institutions are being rapidly undermined from within.
• Rule of Law at Stake: The attempt to oust a Federal Reserve governor is a direct challenge to long-established legal safeguards.
• Performative vs. Policy: Trump’s superficial gestures (“I love black people”) are contrasted with his long, racially divisive record.
• What Next for Democracy: Robert Reich urges all available forms of resistance, a unified moral narrative, and a renewed fight for working people’s interests.

---

For listeners seeking a sobering, informed, and wide-ranging discussion on America’s most pressing political crises—with calls for both critical resistance and hope—this episode is essential.

Transcript

[Dave Rubin]

Well, for the second day in a row, I start with a phrase I never thought I would utter. Republican President Donald Trump is having the United States government buy stakes in private companies. This is what we used to call communism in the quaint old days when we were told Democrats are going to do this. There is a lot to explain here, there's a lot to talk about. So let me first kind of give you a little bit of information about what's happening and then take a step back and discuss the political implications. This latest move from Donald Trump is so wild that even the MAGA diehards are sort of scratching their heads. This is not the Fox News boogeyman version of if a Democrat becomes president, they will socialize or even communize. I'll get to these terms in a moment. Private industry. This is Trump's Republican government saying we are buying a 10% stake in the private for profit company intel, the chip maker that lost almost $19 billion last year and has really been struggling to compete with Taiwan's tsmc. And so what the Trump administration has decided to do is to buy 10% of Intel. Now let's step back for a moment. We're going to see a clip in a moment from, from Howard Lutnick saying we might even do this with more companies. But before we do that, I want to remind you that it has been Republicans warning us Democrats either want to turn the country socialist or turn the country communist. Now you can ask 10 different people for their definitions of socialism and Communism. You'll get 12 different answers. Many of those answers often self serving. But as a very simple shorthand we might consider, socialism would be socializing ownership of private industry, meaning it is owned by society, or at minimum, it's owned by the employees of the business, although that's more of a co op. But the socialization of the means of production would be that it is owned by society. And then communism, we might often say as a shorthand, the government owns industry. In other words, there isn't really private industry. Businesses are owned by the government. What Donald Trump and the administration are doing here by taking a 10% stake in intel and maybe in other companies, as Howard Lutnick is going to tell us momentarily, is a form of the communism that Trump and MAGA and Republicans have been warning us it's Democrats who would implement it. Now Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been saying this is great, even though he is an anti communist and antisocialist. He's been saying this is a fair deal for the American people. Intel's CEO came in to talk to Trump in order to save his job and, and he's walking out with billions of dollars from the government in exchange for a stake in the company. So what's happening here is that the government hands Intel $10 billion essentially in subsidies and then takes $10 billion in ownership stake right back. When will the right start criticizing these obvious communist policies by Donald Trump? I don't know, because here's Howard Lutnick saying we're going to do even more of this. We might nationalize Lockheed Martin or other companies. Listen to this.

[Howard Lutnick]

Why defense companies for America.

[Donald Trump]

Secretary why shouldn't the US Government say, you know what, we use Palantir services, we would like a piece of Palantir. We use Boeing services, we would like a piece of Boeing. There are a lot of businesses that do business with the US Government that benefit by doing business with the US Government. Where again, I guess the question is, where's the line?

[Howard Lutnick]

Oh, there's a monstrous discussion about defense. I mean Lockheed Martin makes 97% of their revenue from the US government. They are basically an arm of the US government. They make exquisite munitions, I mean amazing things that can knock a missile out of the air.

[Dave Rubin]

Just, just delicious bombs when it's coming towards you.

[Howard Lutnick]

But what's the economics of that? I'm going to leave that to my Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense. These guys are on it and they're thinking about it. But I tell you what, there's a lot of talking that needs to be had about how do we finance our munitions acquisitions. I think a lot of that is talking. And now you have the right people in the jobs and, and Donald Trump at the head thinking about what is the right way to do it. I tell you, the way it has been done has been a giveaway.

[Dave Rubin]

Trump is doing what the right has spent decades fear mongering that the left would do. The federal government is going to start buying pieces of businesses and putting the federal government inside of the boardrooms. That socialism, it's communism, it's Marxism. Just imagine if Senator Bernie Sanders proposed this. You would have Republicans saying this is the death of capitalism as we know it when Trump does it. Lutnick goes on CNBC smiling ear to ear with a shit eating grin saying this is America first. We are doing what is best for the United States. So let's not ignore the very obvious here. This is not a principled shift in economic policy. It's not like you're going to sit people, these people down and they're going to say, you know, all these decades we were fear mongering about communism. It's actually pretty cool. We decided it's a good idea, it's something we want to do. This is not about that. This fundamentally, you always have to analyze the actions of any administration, but certainly this one, you always have to analyze it in the context of what is the prism through which they see everything. For Trump, there are a few prisms. There's loyalty and himself as the greatest good, the highest good to support. There is fear, in other words, the desire to be feared and the belief that being feared is the most powerful way to get people to do what you want and to succeed, as he defines it. And number three, it's about power and control. And so Trump getting to have a stake in deciding which country, which countries, which companies thrive based on who he helps and which companies collapse based on who he chooses not to help. National security aside, national economy aside, he wants everybody dependent on him. And the more dependent on him that people and companies and media outlets and other countries are, the more power he has. And one of the ways to do that, of course, is by sowing fear and making people afraid of you as he sees it. So for now, the stake in intel is a non voting stake, but the precedent is very dangerous and investors are warning. This creates a new category of political risk for US Businesses. You know, US businesses have a lot of different types of risk. There's economic risk. If there is a global or national business cycle that is up or down, aside from what sort of tchotchke we produce, we would have upside or downside based on these global business cycles. You've got pandemic and national disaster type risk, right? These, these events that are unpredictable and they are not manmade events. Well, now there's another layer that you're potentially adding to this and that is, are we on the good boy list with whoever is in the White House or are we on the bad boy list with whoever is in the White House? This is what they told us to be afraid of if a Democrat became president. And the president that said I will drain the swamp is now the one who is buying pieces of the swamp, filling some swamps, supposedly draining others. Authoritarian economics looks like this. You know, this is, this is not neo Keynesian. This is not, this is simply authoritarian economics. The state will grab pieces of private industry while claiming it's for your benefit in order to sow fear and to seize more control. And if Howard Lutnick here is to be believed, this is only the very beginning, they're planning on doing more of it. What happened to the free market? What happened to capitalism? As usual, it's here are our principles until they're convenient, and then we'll throw them away and do the complete and total opposite. Donald Trump allegedly said something absolutely insane to Vladimir Putin during the recent pow wow. That is that Trump apparently believes that the US And Russia were allies during the Cold War. Think about that for a moment. In the Cold War, the US Was against Russia, against the ussr but according to Michael Wolff, we're going to hear from him here in a moment. Donald Trump is so clueless and he was so confused that during his meeting with Vladimir Putin Just 10 days or so ago, he was speaking under the impression that, that the US and the USSR were allies in the Cold War. Listen to this. This is a few minutes. This is, this is really worth listening.

[Anonymous Insider]

I am hearing not from the principals. It would be the principals, one of the principles, talking to someone else who then is speaking to people who, who speak to me. So this is twice removed or so given that. Okay, except that, that context. But so as this is related to me, they went into the meeting and Trump started to talk and talk and talk and talk, blah, blah, blah.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, who's in the meeting? So it's Donald Trump. It's Vladimir Putin and there's an interpreter.

[Anonymous Insider]

Yeah, well, it's Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff.

[Dave Rubin]

Right.

[Anonymous Insider]

There are two people with, with Putin and then interpreters. Okay, so that's, that's the meeting. So Trump begins. Begins to talk. I mean, just launches in. Putin is impassive. This is described just expressionless impassive. Just letting him go on and he goes on at.

[Dave Rubin]

And what is he talking about? Is he doing, Is he doing.

[Donald Trump]

You don't know.

[Dave Rubin]

Yes.

[Anonymous Insider]

You have no idea what he's talking about. It's a combination of flesh flattery. It's a combination of things that he's just pulled out of somewhere. Observations. Yeah, it's, it's both, both inconsequential and incoherent. So at which point either Witkoff or, or Rubio interrupts him to actually try to lay out an agenda. He then proceeds to talk over them. So, so again, we're, we're nowhere in this meeting. We're probably now, you know, 20 minutes in. Nothing is clear about what anyone is doing there, except that Putin is totally impassive.

[Dave Rubin]

So he's just letting it play out.

[Anonymous Insider]

No, and the interesting thing is to, is to think about how the translator is translating what Donald Trump says, just imagine that.

[Dave Rubin]

Some risky, risky translation there, that's for sure. Can you imagine that job?

[Anonymous Insider]

Yeah, No, I can you.

[Dave Rubin]

They're probably worried it doesn't make sense, and they're like, oh, my goodness, am I translating this?

[Anonymous Insider]

Completely? Completely. So then at one point, Putin does clear his throat to speak, and he launches into a history lesson. Of course, Russia, you know, was this. You know, you know, these history. You know, you're back in the 17th century. And then he works his way up again, all to show why they should conquer Ukraine. Trump, not to be outdone, as this is related to me, goes into his own history lesson. And this is a history of the Cold War. And as this is described to me in Trump's history of the Cold War, it would appear that the US And USSR are. Are on the same side.

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, you know, you laugh. You laugh not to cry. You really do. And, you know, I think it's important to contextualize. I don't think Trump is enamored with Putin because Trump wrongly believes the US and the USSR were on the same side of the Cold War, like it might. It might be tempting to hear that and go, Trump's not really impressed with authoritarian dictators. Trump's not really enamored with Putin because of his brutality. Trump simply thinks the US And USSR were allies during the Cold War, and therefore he wants to be friends with Putin. That would be the wrong instinct. Trump is enamored with Putin because he's a brutal dictator and an autocrat. Trump is in love with the idea that what he says goes, and that dictatorships are just far easier and more convenient for the dear leader than democracies. In addition to that. In addition to that, Trump's understanding of history is limited at best. And if we take a step back, over the last 48 hours, we've learned, number one, the Vice President of the United States, J.D. vance, thinks that World War II ended with negotiations. We played that clip yesterday. That is not how it ended. World War II ended with the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan. And mean, in the meantime, meanwhile, Donald Trump, the president, believes that during the Cold War, the United States and the USSR were on the same side, united against. I don't know what. Even though, of course, the Cold War was the capitalist United States pitted against the communist ussr if they don't even understand these basic facts about history, how on earth could they accomplish anything on the global stage? The answer is, of course they aren't able to. And that's why they haven't support our show by checking out our sponsor Brain fm Focus Focus Music. They're giving you free access to their app for a whole month at Brain fm. Pacman Once you try Brain fm, you'll quickly understand why this has become my go to music app when I just want to focus on work. In addition to music for focusing on work, they have modes specially designed for sleep, relaxation, meditation, all created by musicians working working with neuroscientists. A peer reviewed study showed that Brain FM's music boosts attention, especially for people with adhd tendencies. Brain FM's Focus Music is the only music made to support ADHD. Brains Brain FM is the only music app funded by the National Science foundation because of their unique audio technology that changes the patterns in your brain Brain Brain FM has been an amazing tool when I just want to focus on work. In the past I've tried Spotify or YouTube. I end up distracted or can't find exactly what would be most useful for me. So at a certain point I figured silence must be the solution until I discovered this. Brain FM is personalized depending on your brain type. So if you want to improve your focus or relax, give Brain FM a try for 330 days totally free. Go to Brain FM pacman the link is in the description Many of us know all too well about the sticking, rubbing and chafing that you can get with traditional underwear. Our sponsor, Sheath Underwear, have created unique boxer briefs with multiple ergonomic compartments in the front which prevents skin on skin and that means everything stays separate, comfortable, dry and cool. You will have a boost of confidence when you're out and about. I've known so many people who were skeptical about those compartments. Friends who say I heard that ad for sheath. What about those compartments? And then they try it and then they're amazed at the comfort and breathability. When they finally try it. You will thank yourself. Plus Sheath has brand new materials like bamboo and and mesh for even more cooling comfort. They will be the most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you ever put on. No more sweatiness and chafing and readjusting, especially at the gym. It's a lifesaver. Give sheath underwear a shot. I've had a great experience. I think you will to head over to sheathunderwear.com/pacman and get 20% off with code PACMAN the link is in the description Donald Trump just crossed the line that no modern president has crossed. He tried to fire a sitting Federal Reserve Governor. Her name is Lisa Cook and Lisa Cook is telling Trump, I am not going anywhere. This is going to get very interesting. Just hours after Donald Trump announced Lisa Cook's, quote, immediate removal from the Fed's Board of Governors, Cook released a very simple but very defiant statement wherein she said, I will not resign. She says there is no cause for her removal under the law. And that's the thing. There is a law here. And we are going to have another opportunity. We've had no shortage of these opportunities during Donald Trump's presidency. We're going to have another opportunity to see, does the law have teeth? Does the law matter? And when we say that the law provides for X, is there an enforcement mechanism to make it so? Presidents are only allowed to remove Fed governors for cause. That's a standard that exists for a simple reason. There might someday be a president so desperate to politicize every element of government, every institution for his own gain, hypothetically. Right? And it just so happens that that's what Trump is. The reason these laws exist is in the event that that the American people were so disoriented and boneheaded that they elect someone like a Trump, the laws exist to prevent Trump from coming in and reshaping and manipulating and coercing every institution for his gain. Right now, Trump's desperate desire is to get the Fed to lower interest rates. Trump believes that would help the economy and it would help his economic record. And we are now going to test that, that law, because once the White House starts purging central bank officials to get the policies that Donald Trump wants, the Fed stops being the Fed. It's no longer independent. It's just another political agency. It's like Trump's Department of Defense under Pete Hegseth, or it's like Trump's Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem or whatever. Now, Donald Trump's justification here for removing Lisa Cook is a mortgage record scandal that has not been adjudicated or proven in court. There are allegations that came from Bill Pulte. Now, Bill Pulte is a hardcore partizan Trump ally who runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency. What Pulte is claiming is that Cook claimed two primary residences to get better loan terms. Now, there's a couple of things that I think are important to say about this. First of all, this is an allegation against Lisa Cook. Number two, she has not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. But this has provided a talking point. But I actually think it is worth discussing the substance here a little bit. There's an analogous situation here, I'm sure some of you recall. Just bear with me here, okay? I'm going to try. I mean, I. I struggle sometimes to speak coherently and explain things clearly. You may remember allegations against people. They are registered to vote in two places. It was often Republicans making that allegation about Democrats. In fact, it turns out that Donald Trump's own daughter, Tiffany Trump, was registered to vote in two places. There's nothing really wrong with that as long as you're not voting in two places. I assume, although I don't know, because I never tried to vote in two places. When I've moved around over the last 10, 15 years, I assume there were periods of time where I was registered to vote in two places because it took some time for the place I moved out of to sort of catch up with the fact that I no longer live there. I no longer vote there. That's not a problem. Had I shown up at two different places and tried to vote, that would have been a problem. But I didn't. And the same thing applies to Tiffany Trump. The same thing applies to many others when it comes to this entire primary residence thing. Obviously, if you are deliberately lying and simultaneously involved in two transactions, claiming both are your primary residents in order to get lower mortgage rates, that's a problem. I don't know if it's criminal, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it's definitely not something you're allowed to do. However, I know many people who bought a house and said, this is my primary residence. My intention is to live here. This is where I will live. And therefore they got a mortgage rate based on that being the primary residence. And then later on they say, I'm going to move, I'm going to keep this house, I'm going to rent it out. So when you go and apply for a mortgage at your new house, you are asked, will this be your primary residence? Do you intend to occupy this house? And you say, yes. There is nothing against the law about that. There is nothing illegal about that. Now, you have to know, does your first mortgage have a requirement that you notify them if it stops being your primary residence? Very often, as long as you're in the house for a predetermined period of time, say a year, you don't have to say anything. You honestly told them, it's my primary residence when you bought it, you got the mortgage rate. You got. That mortgage is now locked and closed, and now you're moving somewhere else. That would be okay. So my point here is, not only has there been no crime here, not only has there been no conviction here, the circumstances are really the critical thing, there may not even be wrongdoing if Lisa Cook did what she's accused of doing. But none of that matters right now, because this is a fight that is really about the Fed's independence and Trump wanting to control it. Central banks are supposed to set interest rates based on economic conditions and not the electoral calendar, not what the dear Orange leader wants. And that's been Trump's war with the Fed from the start. For months, Trump has been leaning on and trying to coerce Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to slash interest rates. Why does Trump want lower interest rates? Lower federal fund rates tend to juice the stock market and make credit cheaper. And in the short term, that often surges the economy. It gives you nice stock market performance. Usually countries. This is the fascinating part. Usually countries do that in a recession, when unemployment is high, when growth is stalling. Trump, on the one hand, is saying, this is the best economy that we've ever had. But on the other hand, he's demanding rate cuts from the Fed that would usually be reserved for emergencies. Trump's been saying the Fed, the rate should be 3 points lower, the rate should be 4 points lower. That's a massive drop to federal funds that you would normally only see in very dire economic circumstances. For good on him. Jerome Powell has not yet caved. And now Donald Trump's attention has shifted to other members of the board. And now it's Lisa Cooke. He sees Lisa Cook as an obstacle, so he's trying to get her out. And the message is very clear. Either you get in line and you do what I want, or you're going to have to leave. And if the law doesn't give him power to remove you, he's going to just test the law and push, push, push until it breaks. If Trump succeeds here, this is much more than just a personnel change. This would be a warning shot to any independent regulator at the Fed or elsewhere. Your job security is only as good as your loyalty to Donald Trump. If your loyalty fails, that could be the end of your tenure. Now, Cook's term is set to run till 2038. Trump wants her gone now. And good for her. For now, she's standing her ground. This may be the first major court battle over whether Donald Trump does get to fire individuals at nominally ostensibly independent agencies. Does Trump control what's going on, or does the law govern what is going on? We are going to see. You may recall that Donald Trump launched his political career on birtherism and Mexican rapists, some of whom, I assume are good people. Okay, Trump Stated yesterday in the Oval Office, I love black people. This is one of Trump's kind of free association rants. He blurts it out like a toddler showing off a new word. Now, there's two parts to this. One, Trump continually gets himself, gets himself in these situations where he feels it necessary to declare, I love black people. We've heard this before. Also, I think it is relevant to mention, I think in Trump's entire cabinet and sort of like highest level of second term appointees, there's one black guy, Scott Turner. So in any case, here is Donald Trump, I love black people.

[Donald Trump]

Africa, they like to say, oh, you know, I love black people. And they, and I did great with the vote, with the black people. But they say, he's a racist, he's a racist. I said, really? For 35 years, a war raged between Rwanda and the Republic of the Congo. And it was a vicious war. Nine million people were killed with machetes, largely hatchets, machetes that went on for 30, more than 30 years, but 34, 35 years.

[Dave Rubin]

Trump, a real student of history, as you can all tell. And of course, this is the same Trump who famously declared, where is my African American?

[Donald Trump]

Say, you know what I say now when we have a protester inside, which isn't even very often, I say, be very gentle, please don't hurt him. We had a case where we had an African American guy who was a fan of mine. Great fan, great guy. In fact, I want to find out what's going on with him. You know what?

[Robert Reich]

I'm.

[Donald Trump]

Look at my African American over here.

[Dave Rubin]

Look at my African American over here.

[Donald Trump]

Look at him. Are you the greatest? Do you know what I'm talking about? Okay, so we have an African American.

[Dave Rubin]

There you go. Really extraordinary stuff. I love black people. From Donald Trump. That's called a performance. That's not a policy position. This is a guy who sees politics as marketing and he is trying to sell himself to groups of voters that he knows he has a problem with. That's what this is about. The optics are bad. Polls show him struggling with black voters. We talked yesterday on the show about how Hispanic voters after, after briefly turning towards Trump in 2024 are now very strongly turning against him. And I don't think anybody's buying this crap. This is a playbook we've seen before, which is I'm going to try to blunt criticism not with action, but with a headline grabbing quote. And the problem is that the trick doesn't work when your record is the opposite of what you are saying. And so you can't go from years of race baiting and really coming onto the political scene by arguing that Obama, based on his name and his appearance and the supposed lack of a birth certificate, is probably not American, right? That that's how Trump entered politics. You can't go from that to I love black people and expect anybody to take it seriously. Now, of course, Trump is under fire for his age and health and the constant stream of unhinged public statements. This is just another example of the real time collapse. And you also see that I love black people. It's a very short sentence. And that is another theme that we are seeing with Trump, that his ability to communicate is really relegated to these overly simplistic types of statements. I love black people without anything behind it, without any context and without any policy. Not only is it part of the same sort of racially tinged nonsense that brought Trump into the political world way back when he came down the golden escalator, as he loves to say, it's also emblematic of the fact that he is incapable of anything but the simplest thoughts. And the idea that just saying I love black people is a policy statement of some kind. I don't think anybody's falling for this crap. That's the good news. Our sponsor, Magic Spoon, has been with us a long time. They do the high protein, zero sugar cereals and treats, nostalgically reinventing some of my favorite childhood snacks. Many of you know for me, cereal was not breakfast, it was a snack. And that is still the case. And what Magic Spoon has done is taken your favorite sugary cereals from when you were a kid and turned them into something you can feel good about. Magic Spoon is also launching a brand new high protein granola. True to the Magic Spoon promise, packed with protein, crunchy 13 grams of protein, zero added sugars, and in delicious flavors like dark chocolate, almond, honey almond and peanut butter. They've got their high protein treats as well. Crispy, crunchy, airy, with 12 grams of protein in many flavors. And of course, if you don't love Magic Spoon as much as I do, and our team does, Magic Spoon will refund all of your money, no questions asked. Get $5 off your next order at magic spoon.com/pacman or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store. The link is in the description. What you are about to hear and see is a substack live that I did with economist, author and former Secret Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Robert has been a leading progressive voice for decades. His work as a professor at UC Berkeley, as a bestselling author, as a filmmaker has really shaped the national conversation about inequality and about democracy. His latest book is Coming Up Short, A Memoir of My America. It just hit the shelves this month and hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. He's also featured in the new documentary the Last Class, which captures his final semester teaching at UC Berkeley and also his urgent message about fighting inequality and defending democracy. We'll have links in the show Notes where you can find both the book and the documentary. Check them out. Here is our conversation.

[David Pakman]

Well, it is great to be joined today by Robert Reich. It's been too long since we last spoke. We, of course, have spoken before about your work as a professor, as an author, as Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor in the early 90s, during my, I guess I would call it my political awakening, I really learned about political scandal as a young boy in, in the early 90s. It's great to see you. I really appreciate you talking to me today.

[Robert Reich]

Well, thank you, David. It's good to see you, too.

[David Pakman]

I've been, I've been following your substack with great interest, both for the content of what you're writing, but also even just your presence on the platform as something that even just in the last few years has really become sort of a central hub for people to be in direct contact with audiences that value what they have to say and want, want to hear from them. I'd love before we even get into some of the substantive matters that I have to talk to you about, which are numerous, give me a little bit of your sense of your sense of the platform, your experience on substack, what you think, pros, cons, if there are any to the platform.

[Robert Reich]

Well, it's ideal for me because I can do as much or as little as I want. I don't feel like I'm working for anybody. I feel like I'm working for people who I am actually addressing or reading. And I love the comments. It's a very sophisticated, interesting, thoughtful group of people who are reading and commenting. And so I'm, for me, at my, you know, age and abilities, it is, it's ideal.

[David Pakman]

What is your sense of, I think one of the changes in the kind of landscape of media that's taken place lately, including, as we've seen, former legacy journalists from big newspapers, for example, go independent and choose substack or other platforms. Sometimes it's after they've had a falling out with their employer. Sometimes it's after they there's been a scandal or a pseudo scandal or a manufactured scandal. But there seems to be a growing preference among some Americans to take out the intermediary in a sense. I don't necessarily care if you are reporting for the Washington Post as an example, or the New York Times or Newsweek. I would rather a more direct and some would say parasocial type relationship with the people that I'm reading or getting my news from. Do you think that says anything more broadly about society's expectations that there seems to be a growing preference for that type of news consumption?

[Robert Reich]

Well, I think it's fine, and I am all for it up to a point. But I think that there is something lost. You know, when we all as Americans no longer share the same news sources or when we don't know that others are viewing the same things we are viewing, when we don't have the perennial Walter Cronkites, well, then we lose a little bit of social glue. We lose that sense that we're all in it together. And I frankly worry about that. I also worry that people may be coming to substack as journalists because they are no longer welcome at places like, for example, the Washington Post. They don't feel that Jefferson Bezos can be trusted because he's no longer allowing them as columnists to write what they want to write or 60 minutes, let's say, people who might be coming to substack as journalists posting ON SUBSTACK From 60 Minutes or from CBS. I just think that this gets us to the larger topic of wealth and power and the concentrated wealth and concentrated power in our society. I think that substack offsets some of that, but it is really in response to a much, much larger problem of concentration of wealth and power.

[David Pakman]

Let's talk a little bit about that as we sort of enter some of the more maybe timely topics or discussions. I try always with my audience not to understate a threat, but also not to hyperbolically overstate it. I mean, I basically just do the best I can to say here's how concerned I am about whatever the topic might be, and especially over the last few weeks, as we've seen these federal deployments of law enforcement for domestic law enforcement in D.C. and now threats in other parts of the country. As we saw Donald Trump today say, for example, that with an executive order he will make burning the American flag punishable with a year in prison, which the lawyers I had time to speak to said there's no actual provision or mechanism where you can do that with an Executive order, but let's put that aside. It's something the President seems to want to do. I would love to hear from you how. What level of concern about these authoritarian slides should we have? I don't want to overstate or understate.

[Robert Reich]

Well, I share your concern about not overstating or understating, David, and I certainly, in my substack and other in videos, I try not to be alarmist, but I am becoming more and more alarmed. The slide into this kind of neo fascism is very, very quick. And I think that the underlyings, institutions of American democracy, well, they've been falling apart. They're not nearly as strong, much more fragile than I thought they were. And it's not just Trump's going into all these cities and Trump basically arresting or investigating, using the Justice Department for his own personal uses. I mean, John Bolton. And I. I mean, I've never agreed with John Bolton about anything, but for. For John Bolton, simply because he criticized Donald Trump, to be investigated to me is. Well, it just goes to the core of what we are talking about in terms of losing our rights and freedoms. Donald Trump cannot tolerate any kind of criticism. I mean, he is trying to control our universities and our media and our. Our law firms and all of the sources of independent motives and independent thinking and independent criticism in this country. He's following the fascist, the totalitarian playbook very, very quickly. And he's doing it quickly because I think that we are still so many of us in a state of shock or denial or despair, and as fast as he moves, you know, we can't catch up with him in terms of processing everything that's happening. So back to your question. I am trying not to be alarmist. I'm certainly trying not to be despairing, but this is the worst I've ever seen.

[David Pakman]

I was reading today that as a result of this, the number of citizenship applications by Americans in Ireland are at a record high. There are Americans going to Canada and requesting refugee status. It's. It's a lot of trans Americans and other members of the LGBTQ community. I. I'm often. I asked Heather Cox Richardson about this, and she had a framework that she kind of presented, which is sometimes people call and they say, listen, David, I. I have a trans daughter, or I'm in a very red part of my state, and I try to advocate for my kids at school, and it's extraordinarily hostile. I'm thinking about leaving, and I always kind of struggle when I'm talking to folks like this, because on the One hand, I know that at the, at the wholesale level, if everybody with the right instincts leave, we're ceding control completely to those with the worst instincts at the retail level, as we might call it, of the individual family. How could I ever say to someone who's identified a threat and says, I've found a path out, no, don't go, because we all need to stay and fight? There's this sort of seeming tension between at the 30,000 foot level, fighting and at the family level, doing what's best for your family. What, what's your thought about this apparent tension?

[Robert Reich]

Well, first of all, Most, you know, 98% of Americans can't afford the luxury of leaving the country. They don't have any contacts abroad. They couldn't. It's not clear how they can make a living. They don't have the savings they need to do that. So we're talking about really a very small number of people. But the issue comes up again and again in a slightly different way in terms of the people I talk with. And that is they say to me, should I just give up? Should I basically be so hopeless that I don't, you know, I just don't force myself to become crazy? Why fight this? I mean, he's gonna be out of office. He's 79 years old. He's not going to live forever. This is not like communist China or it's not like a totaler, totalitarian state where the leader is there forever. He's an old crazy man. But what I worry about most with that attitude, and it's analogous to leaving the country, what I worry about is that if we physically or psychologically give up, if we move out or move out in our heads, we are giving them, that is the neo fascists, the Trumpers, everything they want. We are ceding our country to them. They want us to give up. They want us to leave the country. If we can't leave the country, they'd like us to basically say, nothing is going to change, it's hopeless, you're going to get it all. Well, we've got to continue to fight, David, and you know that as well as I do. We have to stay and fight. The stakes are too great, not just for our children and grandchildren, not just for the United States, but for the entire world.

[David Pakman]

When you think about, I don't know, 2026, 2028, just the kind of forthcoming elections. I want to be delicate but also honest here, which is I've had several dozen Democratic elected officials on my show over the last few months. And for the most part, I don't come away from these conversations saying, wow, we are really well equipped here for what we are up against. I mean, there are some exceptions. I spoke to Gavin Newsom last week, and whatever one's opinion of his politics are, he's fighting in a way. I don't see a ton of people willing to fight right now. You know, the strongly worded letters aren't really doing it for me.

[Dave Rubin]

Right.

[David Pakman]

Right now. So I guess I want to get your sense of when you look at the Democratic Party right now, do you see a party that is well equipped and ready and willing to do what you think needs to happen over the next couple of cycles, or is it a rebuilding period?

[Robert Reich]

Or where are we? Well, one of the greatest disappointments of my life is the Democratic Party, because I saw it. I'm old enough to remember when it was basically a populist, progressive party. I remember my father and my grandfather and everybody else. They were part of a Democratic party in the 1930s and 40s that really did have its feet in the working class and in labor and the labor movement. And what I have witnessed during my lifetime is a Democratic Party that actually just has become a giant fundraising machine that is worried about the suburban swing vote and is worried about getting the next campaign contribution from another big corporation or another wealthy person. I think the Democratic Party as a party is pretty much, and I hate to say this because the Republican Party is a cult and they're a zombie group of dangerous people. The Democratic Party really almost doesn't exist as a force. It's a very, very big tent. I like big tents, but it's such a big tent that it almost doesn't have any center. It doesn't have any tent pole. I do like individuals around the country who call themselves Democrats who are very close to my values. And that is a populist, progressive value that I said. I think we have to fight corporations and corporate power and also very, very wealthy individuals who are abusing their power by turning their money into politics. I think that's a very core problem we have to deal with. And the agony that we're going through, the nightmare that we are going through right now with Donald Trump may be an opportunity for us to redefine who the Democratic Party is. What we must do, what we as progressives or populists, whatever we want to call ourselves, must do to get big money out of politics and to make sure that when this nightmare is over, if it is ever over, that we have a stronger Democracy, that we have wider net of people who are benefiting from the productivity improvements in the economy, and that we have a Democratic Party that's really fighting.

[David Pakman]

When you hear the debate about to win, the Democratic Party must move to the left or move to the center. Is your reaction the answer is one of those two things or is your reaction that's the wrong question, actually.

[Robert Reich]

Oh, I think it's the stupidest question I can imagine. I mean, first of all, there's what kind of center is there between fascism and democracy? Because those are the two poles right now. You don't choose a middle point between fascism and democracy. There is none. Secondly, left. What does left mean now? What does right mean? I mean, what we're really talking about is being effective, being powerful, being bold, having a message that people will latch onto because it resonates with their own personal experience. And we know that right now the median wage that the typical working person in this country is struggling, struggling as much if not more than that person has been struggling for anywhere in the last 50 years. Prices are going up. They're going up actually faster than they were before. Jobs are less secure than they were. Job growth is almost not occurring at all. The Democratic Party has got to be a fighter for average working people and has got to say, no, we are not going to accept this. These are all political choices and we are going to make political choices and fight for a politics that is basically centered on the average working person in America.

[David Pakman]

What does economic policy centered around that group of people look like? And I'll contextualize that in this way. There are many things Kamala Harris arguably did right during her relatively 107 day campaign, relatively short campaign, and some things she did wrong. One of the things that struck me as very poorly calibrated were the policy ideas around economics. There was this thing which I struggle to even explain now, which was it was either a deduction or a credit against expenses to start a new business. And I just thought, this is like, this is not really what we need right now. But I don't know what we do need. I mean, from a policy standpoint, what should the Democratic Party be offering that would genuinely help this large middle that you're talking about?

[Robert Reich]

Well, number one, fighting monopolies. I mean, one of the reasons the prices are going up so fast is that you've got in food and the food industry and in many other industries, you've got just a handful of major players that are setting prices and are coordinating price increases. Fight monopolies. The Biden Administration did it pretty well. There were some very, very good people in the Biden administration that were starting to put monopoly and antitrust where it should be. Number two, support and strengthen labor unions. Labor unions are down in the private sector. We're down to 6% of the private sector is now unionized. You can't have any countervailing power to big corporations unless you have strong unions. Number three, I mentioned, get big money out of politics. There are ways of doing it we don't have to have, but I think we may have to settle for a constitutional amendment if that's necessary. But we've got to get big money out of politics. And we could spend a whole hour or three hours or maybe a week talking about that, David. But I think it's critically important and we could go on. I mean, I think Medicare for all is, you know, is something that the time has come for. Every day I hear or talk with people who have lost their health insurance or cannot possibly afford the healthcare they need and the environment, I mean, let's, you know, climate change, wind and solar are essential. And this administration is going in the opposite direction. Now, those are six things I just mentioned. Is it so hard for Democrats or for a Democratic candidate or for Democratic leadership to just simply stick to those six things?

[David Pakman]

What's the right way, in your mind of not getting drawn into some of these contrived culture war issues every election, but not appearing to be either uncaring or insensitive to what maybe represents a genuine concern from some of the electorate? And this might be, you know, the transports issue or pick your battle right, the PTA mask people or whatever. What's the right way to handle when the right, and you have to hand.

[Dave Rubin]

It to them, they put a bunch.

[David Pakman]

Of money into figuring out what's the right way to talk about these issues, such that if they don't engage, they look bad. They, they've done their homework on the way to present these issues to a degree. How should Democrats handle that?

[Robert Reich]

I think instead of cultural populism, which is what the Republicans have been developing, the Democrats use economic populism. They say, look, we're not saying that the cultural issues are unimportant, we understand, but this is all about power. This is all about brutality. It's about the powerful who are brutalizing the weak. We Democrats stand for the opposite. We stand for empowering those without power. We stand for stopping the brutalization. Whether we're talking about Gaza or we're talking about transgender people, it's the same point we're not going to allow the powerful to brutalize the unpowered, the people who are disempowered, the people who are vulnerable, the people who really are at risk with regard to a system or a world in which there are no constraints on the powerful, or it's fundamentally.

[David Pakman]

A moral issue in the context of a campaign or even in the context of debates. Do you think that. How would you rank how well Democrats have done at dealing with that in the right way?

[Robert Reich]

Not well at all. What do you, you mean give, give a grade? I'm. I'm a professor. I give out grades. I give Democrats a C minus, maybe, maybe a D or possibly an F. Because. Because again, too many are afraid to take on the powers that be. Too many are afraid to bite the hands that feed them in terms of big corporations and very wealthy people abusing their wealth and power.

[David Pakman]

If we zoom out a little bit and think about the next, let's call it three plus years of Trump, but maybe it's a little less or more, depending on what happens in the house in 2026 and how much of a bulwark post could maybe become against some of what Trump wants to do. There are varied ideas as to the best way to handle the next few years. One is use the courts. It doesn't get the headlines that the declaration from Trump gets, but we've been successful, some will say, at eventually stopping some of these bad ideas by using the courts. And that should be the focus. Or it should be fighting fire with fire, using ballot referenda, doing what Gavin Newsom is doing, doing anything we can in sort of that mold to try to stop what is happening. Or it should be civil disobedience and mass rallies in urban centers to shut down industry or all of the above type, type things on a practical sense, us in the media as content creators and then also your average voter who follows this stuff. What's most effective in your mind?

[Robert Reich]

All of the above. And I don't want people to think that, oh, it's gotta be protests or oh, it's got to be a boycott of companies that are caving into Trump, or oh, it's got to be civil disobedience or, you know, we have to do it all. And again, I'm old enough to remember the civil rights movement and the anti Vietnam War movements. I mean, we did it all. People reach for whatever tool they had and if you give up a tool, you're giving him to tyranny. No, every single thing we have to.

[David Pakman]

Be doing is this an environment where it's an administration that will weaponize law enforcement more than any in recent history against those that choose to use those tools. I mean, I think the answer is obviously, yes, but to what degree? And is that part of the design, to make people afraid to do the things you're talking about and how you deal with that fear, which I think is warranted in a lot of, A lot of cases.

[Robert Reich]

Of course it's warranted. But you don't. Here's the thing, David, you have to be very, very smart about, for example, demonstrating. You don't want everybody, for example, right now to descend on Washington, D.C. because that's what Trump wants. He wants to be able to say that the Insurrection act is necessary, and he wants to stage a showing of brute force against what he considers to be the left or the people who are demonstrating. No, you want demonstrations. If we're talking about demonstrations right now, you want them to be decentralized. You want them to be exactly like the no Kings day demonstration of June 14 was. It was all over the country, and it was hugely effective. And it made Donald Trump's stupid military parade on his birthday look stupid. You know, just, just, just dumb. It diminished Trump and it strengthened the people. And that's what we want to do. Everything we do, even calling the congressional switchboard and talking to your representatives or registering with your representatives and your senators that you want this and don't want that. That's important. It's not a huge thing, but it's very important. I've been on the Hill, I've worked on the Hill, and they actually keep track of how many people call in and express their views on this or that matter, particularly constituents. Or look at the boycott. The boycott of Tesla was a big deal. And I could give you other boycotts that have had similar real world effects. Businesses spend gigantic amounts of money on their brand images. They don't want anything that tarnishes their brand images. So if we take companies and organizations that really are caving into Trump and focus on them and just simply not buy from them, that's a big deal itself as well.

[David Pakman]

I want to get your thoughts on education a little bit in this context. As someone in academia, I have little kids and I have their 529 accounts going, right? I'm sort of like going through these motions of 15 and 18 years from now. When they get to college age, it's still going to make sense to kind of do the tours and apply and get your recommendations and spend four years there. But I also have kind of in the back of my mind to a great degree because of the cost of college relative to the salaries that they would expect to earn that. I just don't really know if the paradigm that's been kind of growing about going to college is necessarily going to be relevant in 15 and 18 years when the time would come for them to go to college. So that's like on one side and maybe there's more value in starting your work experience four years earlier or if they're interested in entrepreneurship or other. Other paths. That's one side. The other side of it is that I remember Rick Santorum 15 years ago talking about college is liberal indoctrination. We're just never going to have them on our side. So we just have to damage colleges and universities as much as possible. That's the path forward. And now we see the demonization that's taking place at of higher learning. I would love to hear from you as someone inside of it. We know the path that the right is taking. I'm just sort of thinking about it as a cost versus wages and this sort of thing. What's your sense of the direction of higher education right now?

[Robert Reich]

Well, the higher education is really at least two different worlds. One is the world of elite private schools and the other world is the world of public universities, including community colleges. I think the second is worthy of a huge amount of investment and time and energy. And I teach at a public university, University of California, Berkeley. I'm very proud of it. I think it's fabulous. I love my students and even though I have actually technically retired, I haven't. I'm just between us, I'm still teaching, but I think that we have and I'm going to go up to. I'm zooming out now to 30,000ft. I think as a society we have bought into a very dangerous conceit which is that the only way you get into the middle class is if you have a four year college degree. That's crazy. There are a lot of students, a lot of young people who should not have to do that. One of my sons, Sam, dropped out of high school, never looked back. And now Sam is doing some pretty terrific stuff.

[David Pakman]

I follow him, he's doing really great stuff.

[Robert Reich]

Yeah, but that's just one example. I also urge undergraduates to take time out. Don't just go directly to graduate school, don't go to law school, don't go to business school, don't just, just take time out. Even in the course of your four years, take time out maybe a year out. I urge high school students to do the same thing. Don't go directly to college if you can afford not to. In fact, some of you can't afford to go directly to college. So take a year or two out and make some money and see the world and discover some things about yourself.

[David Pakman]

That's super, super interesting. Professor Reich, we are at the end of our time. I can't tell you how grateful I am for your time. I saw that Paul Krugman recently joined the stream and we've been trying to get a hold of him. I would love to have a conversation with him as well, so maybe we could make that happen. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing. I always appreciate getting your mailings via substack, and I look forward to doing it again with you.

[Robert Reich]

Thank you very much, David.

[Dave Rubin]

Take care.

[David Pakman]

We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you ever feel like you're being watched online? It's because you are. Even in incognito mode, your Internet activity can still be tracked by your Internet service provider, by big tech, by data brokers, and even by the government. The solution is our sponsor, Private Internet Access, a VPN that hides your IP address so you can't be tracked online, and so you can access websites and content normally not available in your region. Private Internet access is the only VPN that can prove in multiple ways. They do not log your Internet activity. Their software is open source. Anyone can see that the VPN is not logging your traffic. Multiple court cases have happened where law enforcement tried to get user activity logs from the company. The company didn't have them. You can choose from lightning fast IP addresses in all 50 US states and 91 countries. You can use private Internet access on unlimited devices with just a single account. And my audience gets 83% off, which comes out to just 203amonth, plus get four extra months for free. Go to PIA vpn.com/pakman the link is in the Description President Donald Trump declared himself the President of Europe in a completely deranged, unhinged rant. Donald Trump did a number of public appearances yesterday. In one, he was sitting at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. In another, he was sitting alongside other leaders and JD Vance and South Korean dignitaries and leaders. It was a completely ridiculous and unhinged day. And here is Donald Trump sort of headlining this ridiculous, disastrous day with the claim that many consider him to be the President of Europe, where they respect.

[Donald Trump]

Your president to a level that they jokingly call me the President of Europe. They call me the President of Europe, which is an honor. I like Europe and I like those people. They're good people, they're great leaders. And we've never had a case where seven plus, really 28, essentially 35, 38 countries were represented here the other day. 38.

[Dave Rubin]

You know, I can assure you nobody in Europe is referring to Trump as the President of Europe. I was recently in the UK and France, spoke to a lot of people. The idea of Trump being seen or considered by anybody to be the president of Europe is about the furthest thing from reality that I can imagine. Now, there were a number of other moments that certainly raised concerns. Donald Trump at one point waxing poetic about burning fossil fuels and pumping carcinogens into the atmosphere. Trump attacking wind, Trump attacking solar panels, but saying coal and gas are really, really great.

[Donald Trump]

So we have a big advantage in that way. We have a big. We have more oil and gas and coal and energy than any other country in the world by far. No, for whatever reason, God was very good to us. He gave us the greatest. We didn't use it. We started to use wind. Wind doesn't work. They started to use solar panels that took over the land all over the Midwest where the farmers said, what happened to my land? They'd have a 10 mile by 10 mile solar field that they couldn't farm the most.

[Dave Rubin]

What is he talking about?

[Donald Trump]

The most valuable land, farming land in the world, probably the most vibrant in the world. And they put solar plants all over the place. It's ridiculous. Big, massive black fields of solar that all comes out of China, all plastic, all comes out of China. But we have. We have the greatest amount of energy in the world. And we're dealing with South Korea, as you know, in Alaska, and we're going to be making a deal, a joint venture with South Korea. Japan is involved, also very strongly involved. So we have Japan and South Korea.

[Dave Rubin]

And so Donald Trump's color has not been modified in this video that you are seeing. That is genuinely the orange hue that he chose for yesterday. And as you can hear the South Korean interpreter struggling to parse the syntax of the nonsense that Donald Trump is spitting out of his mouth. Now, if you thought that was a weird rant, Donald Trump at another point during this meeting spoke about the issue of comfort women. David, what do you say? What do you mean? The issue of. I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine.

[Donald Trump]

This is the right presidency. The whole issue of the women, comfort women. Very specifically, we talked and that was a very. It was a very big problem for Korea, not for Japan. Japan was wanted to go, they want to get on and. But Korea was very stuck on that.

[Dave Rubin]

Now, comfort women, my understanding is, were women and girls essentially forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese armed forces in occupied countries and territories. And this was before for, and also during World War II. I genuinely don't know what Trump knows about that or what he's talking about, but it is absolutely bizarre to hear him talk about it. And if you can figure out what he means, please let me know. Trump was asked about the raid on his own former National Security Adviser John Bolton's house that took place, clearly a political raid. Trump was asked, are more raids like that one going to be happening? And Trump goes, I don't know anything about it. Anything about it.

[David Pakman]

More raids like that coming, sir, are.

[Anonymous Insider]

More raids like the one on Don Bolton's house coming?

[Donald Trump]

More raids? I don't know. You'd have to ask the Department of Justice. They raided my house. I can tell you that. They did a big raid on my house. They took away everything that wasn't pinned down and they took away some of that, too. Now they raided Mar A Lago. They started that. These were bad people that.

[Dave Rubin]

I would love a follow up. Did you or did you not have classified documents at Mar A Lago, though.

[Donald Trump]

Sir, had in our government, before they raided Mar A Lago, they went into my wife's area, they went into my son's area, my young son.

[Dave Rubin]

They went into her special drawer and.

[Donald Trump]

What they did was a disgrace. But how did it work out? Oh, I see. Where the. I guess it didn't work out too well for him.

[Dave Rubin]

Some of you may notice that the Oval Office has been restyled with gold nonsense all over. And it is a constant reminder, something the Trump family has really proven to me, money simply cannot buy class. It just, it just can't. It can't. With regard to authoritarianism, Donald Trump was asked, would you consider sending the National Guard into red states and red cities with crime? And Trump goes, there really aren't red cities in red states with crime.

[Anonymous Insider]

Mr. President, on the National Guard, you've.

[Dave Rubin]

Talked a lot about Democratic run cities and states. Would you also consider sending the National.

[David Pakman]

Guard into red states and red cities.

[Dave Rubin]

That are also seeing high crime, but.

[Donald Trump]

There aren't that many of them. If you look at the top 25 cities that for crime, just about every one of those cities is run by Democrats.

[Dave Rubin]

You know, the reality, of course, is that the crime is mostly in red states. Now. They love to talk about the cities specifically. But there's some important details there. You know, depending on which crime metrics you look at. Like Axios did a survey of FBI data. Thirteen of the 20 US cities with the highest murder rates are in red states. And they always go, well, but the cities are blue. And sometimes what they mean is there's minorities in the cities. The reality is that cities are just blue in general. But certain crimes occur where there is more population density. Typically, law is not governed at the city level. You're talking about the state level. The reason that the crimes are in the cities, it's. That's where the population density is. But they don't want to hear that. They just want to go, no, there is no crime in red cities and certainly not in red states. Finally, Trump with a mathematical impossibility. He will be reducing gas price, I'm sorry, drug prices by 1400%. There is a little problem with that.

[Donald Trump]

Though, in cost cut. I like it, but nothing's going to happen to medical. We have something coming up, favored nations, where I'm going to be reducing drug prices by 14, 1500%. Where a pill that sells in Germany for $10 costs $150 here.

[Dave Rubin]

Because in cost cut, Trump seems to think that if you reduce the price from 150 to 10, that's a 1500% or 1400% decrease. Of course, you can't do that. You can only reduce things up to 100%. Now, if you speak to PhD mathematicians, they will have theoretical things to tell you about reductions of a thousand percent. I can assure you Donald Trump is not cognizant of PhD level math. You can reduce the price of something up to 100%, at which point it becomes free if you reduce it 105%. I guess in some theoretical sense, that means you're giving the person money in addition to giving them the thing. That's not what Trump is saying. Trump doesn't understand that. He continues repeating this completely mathematically impossible thing, and then finally, it's 2025. We're almost in September of 2025. Trump still does not understand how the tariffs work.

[Donald Trump]

But I'd like to meet him this year. President Xi would like me to come to China. It's a very important relationship. Relationship. As you know, we're, we're taking a lot of money in from China because of the tariffs.

[Dave Rubin]

And of course, we are taking no money from China because of the tariffs. The tariffs come from American companies. They import the Chinese stuff. It gets to our shore to get it Released from the boat, they pay. The American company pays a tariff to the American government. He still doesn't get it. I don't want to dwell on this, but images of Donald Trump's crumbling hands are going mega viral again. It's happening almost every day. If you thought the picture of Kankel Caligula's ankle swelling was bad. The latest pictures of Donald Trump's hands are raising major health concerns. We talked about it yesterday based on video from over the weekend. We have a new Oval Office photo with the South Korean president. And Trump's right hand is a giant black and blue patch. It's not new. We've seen it before. We saw it in meetings months ago with the French president. Same hand, same bruise. We saw it in Scotland in July. Makeup caked over it, and now it's back and we have bruises on both hands. The White House continues to sort of generically say Trump's got chronic venous insufficiency, he's on blood thinners, he's shaking hands, and all of that kind of together, it's aspirin and handshaking. Why? His right hand is bruised. The problem, of course, is that now his left hand is bruised. As I told you about yesterday, we've given it another 24 hours. There's no satisfactory explanation of any kind from the White House. Trump has been going out of his way over the last 24 to 48 hours to hide his right hand, covering it sometimes when speaking or holding it where the back of the hand is facing away from cameras. But you can see the bruising on it. And what you really can't separate from the bruises is Trump's history of medical secrecy and bullshit. This is the same guy whose personal physician once said Trump would be the healthiest president ever to be president. Of course, the doctor had not examined any other presidents. I don't know how he could make that claim. Trump refused to release his full medical records in 2016. He hid his the seriousness of his Covid case and even was deceptive, had doctors be deceptive about whether he had received oxygen. And now the story we're being told is it simply handshakes. No one believes it. There's good reason not to believe it. If you're hiding one thing, we have to wonder, are you hiding 10 things? Now, the online reaction has been brutal. People talking about IV marks, heart failure, diabetes, dialysis, jokes about the bruises taking longer to heal than the ear that was supposedly shot with a bullet. And by the way, I do think that there's another story there. On the one hand, we're supposed to believe Trump's an older guy. He's just getting bruised hands that never heal from shaking hands. But at the same time, we're supposed to believe that Trump's ear was shot and it was impossible to even see a mark on it a couple of weeks later. Seems unlikely. Seems unlikely. Now, of course, doctors say nothing to see Trump's doctors, who are political players. No heart failure, no kidney disease, nothing serious. But even if that's true, the reality is that when you've lied about your health for so long, for decades, when you've tried to hide from cameras during medical scares, when you rush to Walter Reed while you can still walk to avoid being taken there on a stretcher, as you get sicker and sicker from COVID of course, people are going to wonder what on earth is going on here. And the more Trump tries to cover it up, the more people are going to assume there is even more to cover up here. And that's where we find ourselves today. We've got a phenomenal bonus show for you today. We're going to talk about how the New York. New York City mayoral race has turned into a bench press contest. Should we have elections where we just see who can bench the most? Seems pretty stupid to me, but that's what it's turning into. Donald Trump's D.C. operation is costing four times more than it would take to house the entire homeless population of the city. What a waste of money. And finally, Gavin Newsom is now hijacking MAGA Merchant in the latest Trump trolling tactic. All of those stories and more on the bonus show.

[Robert Reich]

Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad.

[Dave Rubin]

Let's go make a little money on the bonus show. I'll see you then. Sign up@join pacman.com.