Breaking News from Pod Save America - Robert Reich and Jon Lovett Debate How To Deal With Donald Trump

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Robert Reich and Jon Lovett discuss Donald Trump’s economy, the Department of Labor, and what Democrats should do to fight back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joining me today is Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton, and along with Mandy Patinkin, one of a precious few boomer TikTok stars. Thank you for being here today. I don't know whether that's a positive comment or not, John. Thank you, though. I think that then you're taking it the right way. Trump claims that bad job numbers are a part of a secret plot against him by the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I want to talk about why that's dangerous. But first, you were Secretary. Secretary of Labor, you know how the sausage is made. Can you explain why it's ridiculous? Well, it's not only ridiculous. It's absurd. And he is either clinically paranoid. I mean, seriously, or he's the most devious and irresponsible person ever to hold that office. It may be both.

I mean, look, as Secretary of Labor, one of the things that I was delegated with given as a responsibility, one of the cardinal responsibilities of the Secretary of Labor is to guard the crown jewel of data, of government data. That's the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And guarding it meant no political interference, not even a whiff of political interference, not even a suggestion that a politician or the White House could have any influence whatsoever or the Federal Reserve. and the importance of that was quite obvious. It's not just that Wall Street depends on these numbers, the entire economy depends on the credibility of these numbers,

the ability of all kinds of economic actors to make sort of rational decisions depends upon the credibility of these numbers coming out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And it's not only the United States, it's also the world. I mean, we are really talking about one of the most important places in the entire federal government in terms of speaking truth. And when I heard Friday what our president, your president, maybe not my president, is he our president? Yeah, he is. He is. We got to face it, he is our president.

I mean, I mean, really, this is, this is. And then to top it off, John, to hear, to hear, hear his lackeys, you know, the Secretary of Labor, the current Secretary of Labor, and, you know, some of his economic advisors, kind of play up the lie, the absurdity that he, you know, that these numbers are cooked, that they're kind of, they were made against him, that part of a plot. I mean, this is serious, worrisome government that is out to lunch, totally. of these, you know, allies of Trump, his lackeys, as you say, they kind of come in after him like an intellectual Zamboni to make sense of what he's saying, right? Trump's not just firing somebody because he didn't like the jobs report and wants to rig it in the future in his favor. Actually, he has serious qualms about how the Department of Labor is collecting data and there have been just too many errors. Is there any truth to that whatsoever? Is there any kernel of fact to some kind of allegation that there's some problem with our economic data.

Can I be absolutely clear with you and be frank and candid? No. That is a big crock of lies. That is amazing bullshit. I mean, the Bureau of Labor Statistics routinely changes or as new information comes in about previous months, they revise the previous months data. You know, I mean, they want to make it so accurate. They know the stakes are so high in terms of keeping it accurate that as data, new, fresh data come in, they are going to change those numbers. They do it all the time. The revisions, it's standard to make revisions. To see this as a plot, these are career professionals.

If you understand how this system works, they have. a very, very assiduous complex process for making sure that every number is checked and double-checked and triple-checked, and these Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers goes through a very, very kind of the most impressive process you can imagine in terms of making sure they are accurate. And to even suggest that those numbers are cooked, to, I mean, let's put aside the firing of the commissioner of labor statistics, which is on its face just wildly terrible, because how is anybody going to believe the next Bureau of Labor Statistics head? If he's firing anybody who he just doesn't like, you know, is coming up with numbers he doesn't like. If,

If he's just shooting messengers after messenger, I mean, nobody, nobody is going to believe anything coming out of the federal government. So what is the cost of that? Like, practically speaking, what is the cost of that? Because it's very clear, you know, Donald Trump does not care about how our government collects and disseminates data, DOGE, put those, a lot of data collection under attack. They're kind of destroying all of these mechanisms we have for understanding the economy, practically speaking. if people don't trust the numbers that come out of the Department of Labor, what happens? Well, then nobody ultimately, I mean, let's say you're a small business person or you're a big business person, or you're a business person, or an investor, you're anybody in the economy. You have to get the best reading possible on what the economy's going to do. What's the direction of the economy? Are more jobs being created?

Are wages going up or fewer jobs can be being created? are wages going down, where in the country are wages going up or down, or jobs being created or not? I mean, you really depend on these numbers as a very practical matter for making your business decisions. And if you don't trust these numbers, you are really totally in the dark. Everybody, every economic actor is totally in the dark. I mean, it's everybody in the world because, of course, what happens to the United States economy affects everybody else. Everybody in the world is in the dark. I mean, this is the most, I mean, it's hard to talk.

It's so stupid and hard to step back. It's so mind-numbingly self-destructive. It's hard to actually sit back and explain it because of how foolish it is. It's so dumb. John, this is beyond foolish and dumb. This is crazy. This is, this is, you know, this administration, this regime, I call it a regime, Trump has done some really dumb things, obviously. I mean, we all know it. But this is taking, is taking, is putting the entire economy in jeopardy. I mean, you know, his import taxes, which he likes to call tariffs, are bad enough. But to shoot the messenger in terms of where what's happening to the economy is, well, it's bonkers. Totally, totally unbelievable bonkers. So you have this new memoir out today called Coming Up Short, a memoir in My America. And when I was thinking about your story career, I actually went back and looked at the book you wrote about your time in the Clinton cabinet.

Because it's really funny. And in that memoir, you talk about your first cabinet meeting. You said everybody goes around the table talking about how they're cutting costs. One cabinet secretary says, I've reduced our fleet of limousines from five to two. And then another one talks about how they're closing the executive dining room. And then you suggest that cabinet secretary's fly coach. And Lloyd Benson, the Treasury Secretary, is like, all right, all right, this has gone far enough. How about Rob, you shut the fuck up?

in not so many words. And I was struck by the fights you had in that book that you described because that story reminds me of what happened when Elon Musk is doing Doge and all the cabinet secretaries are around that table. And I'm curious if you think that comparison is fair. Not quite because the cabinet secretaries I worked with were decent, hardworking people. And they really were in it for the right reason. they didn't swear allegiance to Bill Clinton. They didn't feel that they were more loyal to Bill Clinton than they were to the United States or to the Constitution.

These cabinet secretaries that surround Donald Trump really are there because they are, have sworn essentially, more loyalty to Donald Trump than to the Constitution and to the United States. You know, hence, as we were talking about a moment ago, the current Secretary of Labor and the current major economic advisors, primary economic advisor, to Trump going on the media and saying that, well, maybe there is something wrong with these Bureau of Labor statistics figures, based on nothing, based on no information, based on absolutely nothing. And they know, they have to know that Trump is lying through his teeth and it's dangerous. They have to know that. So, yes, there's a big difference. between the cabinet I was privileged to be part of that tried to do its job. And these, I don't know what to how do you describe people with lack of integrity?

Is there a collective down? I don't, yeah, that's a good question. We need to name what is a group of Trump cabinet secretary is called, like crows or a murder. A corrosion? A corruption. A corruption. A corruption. A corruption of cabinet secretaries.

A fair point about not comparing them. But I was more referring to the debates you were having at the time because, you know, you've talked at length about just the ways in which in the 90s these deficit hawks were reigning supreme. And one thing you said that jumped out at me is you said, Alan Greenspan, the Fed chair at the time, had the most important grip in town, Bill Clinton's balls in the palm of his hand. Trump is fighting with Jerome Powell every single day. does Jerome Powell have the same grip on the current occupant of the White House? And what do you make of the fight that Trump is having with him? Any Fed chair has a grip around the testicles of any president. I mean, let's be clear about this.

You know, what happened to Jimmy Carter? You remember, I mean, Jimmy Carter lost the presidency, partly because the Fed share said, well, too much inflation, I'm going to raise interest rates and plunge the economy into a recession. And then George H.W. Bush lost his reelection. Why? Because the Fed share said, I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to raise interest rates and put the economy in a recession. Goodbye, George H.W. Bush. So, and Bill Clinton was very afraid of that with regard to Alan Greenspan. So, yes, a Fed share has extraordinary power over president. But here's the thing.

And we were all told in the Clinton administration, do not criticize the Fed share. Don't do anything that even suggests that you don't agree with a Fed share. Because if you do that, you're going to have the same result today that we are seeing with regard to firing the messenger. You're going to undermine the credibility of the Fed as an inflation fighter. That is, if everybody believes that the Fed is doing whatever a president wants, then if a Fed reduces interest rates, if the Fed share reduces interest rates, people are going to say, well, I'm not completely sure that it's doing that because it feels it's okay to reduce interest rates, given the economy doesn't really have any inflation or whether it's doing it because a president

has a grip on the testicles with the president. And so the end result of that is just higher interest rates, right? Like what happens is people just don't trust that these numbers are stable in any situation like that. It causes actually the opposite of what Trump would intend by having control over the Fed. Is that right? Absolutely. And then a double barrel.

I mean, if you feel the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Fed, are both under great pressure, the head of the next head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the next head of the Fed, are you going, are rational people really going to believe that these numbers are real or are they going to believe that they're cooked for Donald Trump? So you mentioned the Fed chair under Carter, who was a guy named Paul Volker, who also was very tall. He was very tall. I hurt my neck to talk to him. And do you wonder, I said,

sometimes think a lot of our problems in this country have been caused by very tall people. James Comey was very tall. I don't know that you get the best advice up there. I think you get because you're literally high. I think, John, you're, you're, you're suggesting a theory that I have not thought about, but you, maybe if you're very tall, you're not getting enough oxygen. I think you're, I think you're not getting enough oxygen. I think it leads to a natural arrogance because you're high above everybody. But for us as short kings, all right, we're scrappy. We're down on the ground.

We're with the people. And let me tell you something else. Short people don't use as much oxygen. Don't use as much. Don't emit as much carbon dioxide. Don't eat as much. I mean, we don't take as much space. We are environmentally responsible.

If everybody was as short as me, I mean, you know, would we have climate change maybe? A little bit less? I'd like, you know, about six to eight inches less. Definitely less. So let's talk about the book because you talk about, you know, it's called coming up short. You talk about being bullied as a kid. And you talk about the role your generation played in not either encouraging bullying or not doing enough to stop it culminating in Trump. Can you just talk about that?

Well, you just summarized the book beautifully. Thank you. Sure. There's nothing else to say. Oh, no. Trump is the bully in chief. I mean, he is a bully's bully. He's always bullied.

I mean, he doesn't pay people. He bullies women. He bullies, he brutalizes people. I mean, he is the kind of quintessence of what, I think, a civilization, what people of integrity. We were talking about integrity a while back, try to stop, try to rebut. try to constrain. And yes, when I was short, I've always been very short, but when I was a small boy, I was always, you know, very short and bullied.

A lot of kids are bullied. Were you bullied as a kid? You bet. Well, I remember, you know, the third graders holding me upside down in the boys' room over the toilets and saying, you know, we're going to put your head in the toilet. And I didn't know what, you know, I mean, I'm a kindergartner. And that was the least of the bullying. I mean, it was every day.

And I didn't want to go to school, and I felt just terrible about myself. And, well, long story, very short, I found some older boys over the years who would help protect me. I have a protection racket. And one of them, years later, I discovered, was actually himself not only bullied, he was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, but he was trying to register voters in the South. His name was Michael Schwerner. And I was in college when I discovered that he had been murdered by the clan. And I think that that realization which I discussed in the book made me understand that bullying was not just

the tufts in my school, the third graders, you know, turning me upside down and holding me over the toilet. No, the real bullying was going on all over. It was white supremacists, clansmen, bullying black people and civil rights workers. It was employers, bullying workers. It was men, bullying women. It was people in power, bullying people who were vulnerable to them, dependent on them. And I began to see bullying all over America, all over society. But more to the point, as inequality of income and wealth started to really get out of control in the 80s and 90s and so on,

The bullying that I saw and witnessed was greater and greater. The economic bullying was worse and worse. We talk a lot about how dangerous Trump is. We talk a lot about people like his labor secretary capitulating and how poorly that speaks of this Republican Party. But I do think we're struggling with something deeper. And I think it helps us think about what we do to not just defeat Trump, but think about the world we want to build after Trump.

as somebody who was bullied, as someone who's thought about why society signs with the powerful over the vulnerable, what made us weak to Trump? What made this country, even after the first four years of Trump, decide to vote for him, to give him a majority of the votes for the first time?

Because I think so many people, particularly non-college graduates, have felt so bullied by this system. that they want their own bully. They want a strong man. They want somebody who is going to essentially say to them, I'm your bully. I'm going to look out for you,

and I'm going to bully everybody else. Now, Trump sold himself that way in 2016 and again in 2024. We know he actually is not on the side of the working people. He's on the side of the oligarchs. He's given them huge. two gigantic tax breaks, cuts and regulatory rollbacks for corporations and oil and gas and you name it. But he gives the impression of somebody who is there for average working people. That's his style. And when he goes off after immigrants or the deep state or transgender people or, I mean,

his list of boogeyman, those targets of his anger and rage, he channels the anger and rage of the working class in America that have felt bullied. You know, if the Democrats had any sense at all over the last eight to 10 or 15 or 20 years, what they would do, I'm going to say even 40 years, John, if they had any sense at all, they would have said to the working class of America

exactly what Franklin D. Roosevelt said. I'm on your side. He not only acted for average working people. I mean, Social Security and unemployment insurance and 40-hour work week and on and on and on, but he also explained to the public that the ruling class, the people who came out of the first business,

Gilded Age, the robber barons, they were doing everything they could to stop Roosevelt. They hated him. He said repeatedly, they hate me, and I welcome their hatred. Well, you know, we have more inequality now than we've had at any time since the first Gilded age, and we have a working class that has not seen a real wage in terms of inflation-adjusted wage really much of a, well, really for the last 30 or 40 years, slight increase, but nowhere near keeping up with the increase in the economy overall. Democrats should have long ago said, we are here for you. We are, this is the party. This is our heritage. This is our legacy. We are the party of the working class. We are going to take on the big corporations. We're

going to take on the wealthy people that abuse their wealth and turn it into political power. We are going to do everything we can to get big money out of American politics. And we're going to do much more. We're going to raise taxes on the rich and we're going to give you child care and we're going to give you this and that. But Democrats instead chose to drink out of the same trough as the Republicans in terms of campaign. in finance. Yeah, like, it was, it was interesting just going back and looking at these fights. You know, you have, you have this big fight over, over deficits versus investment in the 90s. Then there's the

great recession. And some of the same people are having the same debate over austerity versus deficit spending to get out of the recession. Then that debate happens again during the COVID, pandemic and the economic crisis that came after. Now it seems like there's almost a consensus jilling that we actually did too much stimulus and that caused inflation and sort of that side of the argument seems to have gained a lot of purchase. You've said that after this gilded age of Trump comes a new progressive era. Trump in many ways allows us to kind of widen the ambit of what's possible. Honestly, to the, like, I think it's shown Democrats a little bit about just how much more power was at their disposal, how much wider they could have cast their imagination.

based on how much Trump has been able to do just by defying all of these rules. What does that new progressive era look like? What comes after that should get people excited? Well, as you alluded to, you know, the first gilded age of the late 19th, 30th, the 20th century, was followed by what historians have called the progressive era, starting in 1901, with Teddy Roosevelt, and then continuing after 1933 with his fifth cousin, FDR. What was that progressive era? That progressive era was a backlash against the inequalities and corruption of the

Gilded Age. Now, do I predict a backlash against the inequalities and corruption of this second Gilded Age over which Donald Trump presides? Well, I'd like to. I'd like to. I hope we have that kind of backlash, John. imagine us surviving if we don't. Not just surviving as a democracy, but surviving as an economy, surviving as a society. I mean, you know, people are being, as we speak, they're being picked up

off the streets and from courthouses and schools, and they're being arrested and put into detention facilities. 70, more than 70% of them have not had any, criminal record at all? They are working members of their communities. They are upstanding members of their communities. We have a president that's usurping the prerogatives of Congress. You say that maybe Democrats should use these same techniques. Well, not so fast. You know, I think that if we want Democrats to become dictators like dictator Trump, yes, sure. Democrats should follow the same techniques, but I would like to think that this terrible experience we are now all witnessing and having renews our sense of appreciation and dedication

toward democracy and what it means. And instead of taking it for granted and taking the rule of law for granted, I mean, I think that 10 years ago most people didn't really know what the rule of law meant. now they do. And corruption. I mean, blatant corruption. Other countries giving a president a giant jumbo jet, a palace the sky, and people investing in crypto because the president, that makes the president happy. I mean, no, I don't want the Democrats to do this.

Yeah, I don't mean that the Democrats become a version of Trump. But I do think for a long time, Democrats were a little too afraid of Trump. power and afraid and afraid to use their power legally, ethically to the fullest, right? Afraid of picking fights. I remember controversies in the first Obama administration where, you know, there was pushback against President Obama using some of the tamest language to criticize Wall Street. And then you go look at FDR's convention speech in 1936, which is one of the great, great political speeches in American history.

And he is withering and direct. Absolutely. Oh, I'm totally with you on that. I mean, when Obama called Wall Streeters fat cats, I mean, just that little, fat cat, two little words, the street got, oh, they were just incensed. And the corporate and Wall Street Democrats, you know, they got very upset. And they forced Obama, I think they forced him, where they certainly pressured him to be much, much nicer to Wall Street. Maybe one lesson in the last sort of decade is we've got to be willing to tell certain people to go fuck themselves. I think that's true. But here's where the rubber meets the road as it is. You've got Texas, for example, and California. Now, should, to Gavin Newsom, do exactly what Texas is doing in terms of redistricting, but for the liberals, for the Democrats? Well, you know, in some ways you could say, you could say,

Let's do it. Absolutely. Walk on. I mean, you know, fight fire with fire. And a piece of me says, absolutely. Fight that fire with fire. But, you know, Greg Abbott wants to do that. Well, then we're going to have Gavin do some counterbalance them. But you see that I want to just point out, I think that's right. I think I agree with you. But there's a danger going down that road. And that danger is everybody becomes so fundamentally cynical about. about politics. Nobody, nobody feels any loyalty to the system as a system. And everybody is trying to push as hard as they can. And where does that get you? Well, it's, it's one of the great, I mean, this is the great challenge of fighting a right-wing authoritarian movement. You are trying to prove, you're trying to beat them in a game in which they don't follow the rules. And you have two jobs to win in the game and to prove to everybody watching that the game is worth playing. And you have to decide whether or not you are going to break the rules like them in order to make sure you can eke out a victory or if you're going to fight an unfair fight and see if you can

win anyway. We've been losing. We've been losing. We've been losing because of right-wing propaganda. We've been losing because of the unfixable and undemocratic nature of the Senate and, you know, and because of billions dropped on our heads by wealthy right-ring interests. So I totally, totally, totally agree with you in framing the issue that way. Yes. But there's nothing that Greg Abbott and the Texas Republicans are doing that is technically illegal. I agree with that. Of course.

I agree with that. Okay. So, but you just posited if they, you know, if they're going to do something illegal, no, they're not doing something illegal. they are actually, they're taking the rules as they are and stretching them and distorting them, but it's not illegal. And I think that the real question, and again, I'm torn about this, is whether Democrats should play such hardball that it actually begins to undermine faith in the system as a whole. So I think that's right. And I think it's a good distinction.

You're right. What Greg Abbott is doing is not illegal. However, one lesson of the last decade is how much of our democracy depended on a collection of unwritten or kind of understood rules of behavior and decorum. The term is forbearance. So much of our system depended on forbearance and understanding that the most important thing is not winning. The most important thing is democracy and understanding that.

that we'll win and they'll win, but we'll always get a chance to come back and fight in the future. And one example of forbearance was everyone's kind of collective understanding that we do redistricting every 10 years. And you're right, it's not illegal, but it is an escalation. It's an escalation. And the question is, are we going to participate in it too? And if we don't, we'll be down five seats. If we do, maybe we can fight to a draw. And by the way, while also advocating for the fair maps, one thing that's been fascinating over the last week and a half is how many groups founded by Democrats or Democratic-leaning individuals who were for fair maps who were like, I don't know, we were for fair maps, but we think we maybe have to fight this one out.

We were the ones trying to push. The reason California has a problem is because we pushed independent redistricting. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that's exactly the irony. That's exactly the problem. And just to go back to something you alluded to just now, if we don't have political leaders who essentially understand that their first.

responsibility is to building trust in our democratic institutions, above all, not winning, but building trust, then we are already in trouble. We're already in deep trouble. Yeah. No, but I just, I come back to what does legitimacy mean, right? And for a long time, what legitimacy meant was trying to get buy-in from both sides or agreement from both sides. But what people like Mitch McConnell and others quickly understood is they could deny Democrats that legitimacy, right? And so what actually has to happen to build that trust is Democrats gaining power and using it effectively and proving to people that democracy can work. We cannot do that unless we win.

For a long time, I think people have felt disheartened from by both parties. But now we're in this sort of doom loop where people don't believe government does anything. Republicans are sabotaging the government and preventing us from retaking power. And then we're out here advocating for norms and democracy that people don't really believe in anymore. It's, I, it's, it's, there's no good answers, right? Like, I don't think it's, I agree with you, right? We shouldn't be competing in a, in a, in a death spiral of gerrymandering until everybody has these, you know, 70, 30 districts and every Democrat is in a safe seat and every Republican is in a safe seat. But the alternative is Democrats no longer being in a position to win elections.

Yeah. Well, let let me, I both agree with you, but I also want to put it in the, context of the book that I just wrote. Because, I mean, my conclusion is that we started down the road that you're talking about. That is, winning at all cost, not having any sense of the common good or any principled understanding of what we were all together in this experiment called democracy. We started down that road in the late 1970s, early 1980s, and it really was big money. the moneyed interests, putting huge amounts of money into corrupting our democratic process,

corrupting Congress, corrupting state legislatures. This was the Powell memo of 1971. And this was really the beginning of the doom loop that you're talking about. And eventually we got to the point where, as you said, but let me put it in a slightly different way, Republicans understood that if people lost faith in government, that was fine. I mean, that, you know, the Republican fundamental, their constituents, big business, big money, they don't want regulations, they don't want environmental regulations, they don't want any protections for anybody, they don't want social protections, they'd love to get rid of

social security and Medicaid and Medicare. But you've got to show to people, you've got to show to average people, the government really can work for them to get out of this doom loop. And in a way, Donald Trump was inevitable. We were going down this doom loop path. If we didn't have a demagogue at the end of it like Trump, who would we have? Something had to break this doom loop we were in, something. And so the most positive spin I can put on all of this doom is that people see how awful America has become under Trump.

Prices soaring because of the Trump, you know, the import taxes. People watching their Medicaid disappear because of Trump. watching wealthy people get a bigger and bigger tax cut because of Trump. You know, just watching and seeing that Trump is so bad for them that it opens the possibility of a real progressive. Yeah, and I think that's a good place to leave it. The book is Coming Up Short, A Memoir of My America by Robert Reich. for taking the time. It's really good, really good talking to you. Glad we got into it. Thanks for the time.

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