Robert Reich - US Secretary of Labor, 1993-1997 HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk it is Stephen Sackur.

It is now all but certain that Hillary Clinton will be

the Democratic Party candidate in November's US presidential election.

After the latest batch of primaries, her lead over Bernie Sanders is

But even now the Sanders campaign - radical,

anti-establishment and crowdfunded - refuses to admit defeat.

HARDtalk talks to Robert Reich, formerly secretary of Labor in

Bill Clinton's administration, now a prominent supporter

Has the centre of gravity in the Democratic Party shifted?

Robert Wright should in Berkely California. Welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you Stephen. Would you acknowledge that the game is now up

to your man Bernie Sanders? Will the game is never up and this is a very

unusual political season here in the United States. So nobody is out

until they really are out and the odds are shrinking of a Bernie

Sanders nomination because Hillary Clinton has won a number of

delegates and has also, what are called super delegates, Democratic

insiders who have told her that they will vote for her at the nomination

in July. It'll be extremely difficult but not insurmountable for

him to get the nomination. Even he himself has described it as a very

narrow path that could conceivably lead into the nomination. Frankly,

we all know that that is not going to happen. Would it not be best for

all Democrats, and of course you are Democrats, are all Democrats to

advise Bernie Sanders to throw in the towel and start the process of

unifying and healing after a pretty bitter primary campaign season?

Absolutely not, Stephen, I think it is important to Bernie Sanders to

stay in the race. Hillary Clinton stayed in the contests in 2008 and

it was also somewhat a bitter contest in the Democratic primary

but her staying in May Barack Obama a better candidate and kept a lot of

followers in and they ultimately voted for Barack Obama. You see that

the Bernie Sanders phenomenon is not just a candidacy, it is also a

movement to reclaim American democracy from what I called the

money interests, the big banks and financial institutions, the big

corporations are the billionaires who have overrun American politics.

It is also a movement that has attracted unprecedented number of

young people who would be very disappointed and feel let down it

Ernie Sanders was just to leave. I think that movement is going to

continue right through the convention and beyond. Well I want

to talk about the meaning of the movement in some detail. Before we

get their let us stick with Bernie Sanders and a choice he estimates

right now about how he conducts himself over the next few months

leading up to the Philadelphia Convention in July. He says he's not

the guy for politics as usual and he is a different kind of politician,

and yet, what he is doing now and I will use his brutal word, trashing

Hillary Clinton's record it is politics as usual. In the last month

he is saying that she is I'm qualified to be president. You are

one of his supporters, do you think that is ill-advised? It is

ill-advised and identity he said say that she is unqualified. In context

he said if she continues to take large money, it issues in the

pockets of Wall Street, which I don't think she is... In respect she

has taken large amounts of corporate money and there was a dinner that

was $350,000 a plate for the privilege of sitting with George

Clooney. I would not pay that money for the privilege, I would not pay

for it $10 for the privilege of sitting with them. My point... That

is the sort of politics that Hillary Clinton is playing an Bernie Sanders

appears determined to continue this corrosion is assault on Mrs

Clinton's connections to Wall Street and the corporate interests at a

time when I'm telling you, maybe, it would be better for the party if he

backed off. I think there is a distinction here, Stephen that is

very important, I think the Bernie Sanders continues to rail against

big corporate money and big billionaire money and money that is

coming from Wall Street and it is not and should not be interpreted,

and I don't believe and item that is wise that he should say anything

that could be interpreted as an attack on Hillary Clinton

personally. It is an attack on a system that is out of control and I

thing is a perfectly legitimate attack and I do think that one of

the reasons it is important to him to continue in the primaries is

because this line of attack, this line of argument is so important to

be heard in the United States. You have in your analysis of this

political season described this as very much in antiestablishment

political temperature right now. Would you accept that one of Hillary

Clinton's is problems is that you cannot imagine a woman with a more

establishment record then she? You are right in the sense that she has

taken a lot of money from Wall Street and from big corporations and

her husband, when Bill Clinton was president and by the way, I was in

that administration and very proud and we are, should a great deal. But

the point if I may the those who don't remember, it is worth pointing

out that you sat in the Clinton administration as a voice on the

progressive left and joined many fights with other members of the

team because while they were talking about pragmatism, moderation is the

third way, you said that we are liberals. It seems to me that you

and the Clintons have always been at odds to a certain extent on that

point. While not on the meaning of the word liberal and I think that

Bill Clinton and I think e-commerce and very important things, and I

like to think that I helped him, which some of those things, but

there was tension in that demonstration and it was healthy

tension between those who were most concerned about getting the budget

deficit down and shrinking the size of the government, and those of us,

you might call us on the progressive left who wanted to do more to a more

ambitious in terms of helping the problems of the poor, reducing

inequality and so forth. G continues to exist in the Democratic party. I

stay healthy tension because people don't come to blows as they do in

the Republican Party. The Republican Party these days is a bunch of

warring factions. The Democratic party, a large dent, many of my

close friends are people who very strongly disagree with me when I was

in the Bill Clinton administration and they are now supporting Hillary

Clinton. Are they a stab at? Well, to some extent absolutely and I

think this is is in antiestablishment surge, both in the

Democratic campaign but also in a Republican campaign. I promise you

that we will get to the content of the meaning of antiestablishment and

progressive words like that when it comes to politics in just a moment.

But one last question about the Hillary Clinton factor on a more

personal level. I mean she's been questioned on her judgement by

Bernie Sanders, he points to support the Iraq war, he points to what he

does not but many of his supporters point to her use of personal e-mail

in official business, which clearly was a mistake and she apologised

for. There is a judgement factor which Bernie Sanders has introduced

which interestingly Donald Trump is now hammering home as well. Here is

the question. The more Sanders keeps this up the more he is helping the

Republicans, and in particular Donald Trump. And I don't think that

is true Stephen. Certainly if Bernie Sanders tries to go after all

assassinated Hillary Clinton's character and, personally, that

would be damaging and that does help the Republican challenger, whether

it is Trump or anyone else. As long as Bernie Sanders keeps his

criticism to the side that I was suggesting a moment ago. That is to

the general problem and the large problem of big money in politics and

the domination of the interests of big corporations, Wall Street and

billionaires over the interests of average working people. And that is

a valid criticism and I hope that Hillary Clinton here's the criticism

for what it is. And continues to move in the direction the Bernie

Sanders is and has been urging. As she has during this entire primary

season. Interesting point and a lot of people say that because of the

pressure coming from Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton has

modified her position and she has tackled leftward in a way that

leaves many people confused about what she believes. Here is a simple

question. Is Hillary Clinton, in your view, a progressive or not?

Will let us get back to what you want to delay in this programme is

the definition of what all these words mean. I've known her censure

was 19 years old. She deeply cares about the plight of the underdogs,

the people who are poor and working-class, lower middle-class

America and she has been fighting for better educational opportunities

and entire life the people who don't and many good educational

opportunities. And I'm no question about her values? But even as you

listed, sorry to interrupt, even as he listed those think she cares that

you have left me confused. On education, Bernie Sanders is the guy

calling for Free State college education for all, Hillary Clinton

says that is ridiculous and won't work. Bernie Sanders is the guy

saying his call for a $15 minimum wage and Hillary Clinton says that

just won't work. Bernie Sanders says report for those trade deals that

are bad for American workers, and Hillary Clinton in her pastor

supported them and says that the transpacific partnership that Bernie

Sanders hate so much was a golden opportunity. That was one phrase

that she used. Try to expect me that how she could be a progressive and

all those positions I have outlined? She has moved on all those positions

and she's very much in favour of a $15 minimum wage. The fight for 15

she has endorsed. The transpacific partnership she has backed down and

said that is not such a good idea and it needs to be re-examined and

rethought. On many other positions... Why would we believe

her if she packs around the political winds, why would we take

seriously as anything other than the old style ragwort is? Well

pragmatism is not a bad thing in a president. And I think here we get

into this means and ends continue. I've been around politicians for

about 40 years. I do see politicians and the best of them struggling with

means and ends. They want to hold fast to their principles but at the

same time they do want to be pragmatic. Bernie Sanders has pushed

Hillary very hard toward the ideals that Bernie Sanders feels are very

important. I happen to share Bernie Sanders's ideals and that is why in

this election. And he is forcing Hillary Clinton to make a slightly

different weighing perhaps of her pragmatism against these ideals, if

she and when she gets the nomination, will she then moved back

towards the pragmatic, let us put quote round centre, because we're

not define these terms yet. Maybe that is what most presidents and

presidential campaigns do when they are in the general election in the

United States. But that does not mean that those ideals are

meaningless and that she is unprincipled simply because she is

pragmatic at the same time. Will you indoors her wholeheartedly and

unreservedly when it seems inevitable that she finally gets

over the top and has his nomination completely sewn up?

I certainly will, I don't think it's inevitable but I will work my heart

out to make sure she's president. The Democratic party and her

candidacy, if she becomes candidate, present to the American

public a far better set of alternatives than what the

Republicans are presenting. I think the Republicans really are quite out

of their minds. Let's just talk about the legacy that Bernie Sanders

will leave behind, assuming that Hillary Clinton takes the

nomination. He has caused a buzz, he's got a lot of young people

involved in politics for the first time but if you look at his failure

to reach out to minorities, look at his failure to appeal to mainstream

small seed conservative Americans who actually repeatedly say they

want smaller government and lower taxes. What is Bernie's long-term

legacy? Bernie Sanders has put squarely on the public agenda the

Nexus, the connection between great wealth, concentration of income and

wealth and the concentration of political power in the US in the

hands of relatively few people, mostly billionaires and corporate

executives and Wall Street executives. I've been in and out of

politics for 40 years. There has been a huge difference. I've seen in

equality become almost record levels in the United States, and with that

inequality has come the dominance of a moneyed elite over American

politics. Bernie Sanders has eloquently brought to the public's

attention what that has meant for American democracy and also for our

economy. That's interesting but the bottom line is he ain't going to

win, so it just leaves his supporters deeply frustrated and

with a feeling that the system remains loaded against them. But as

you undoubtedly know, any movement to change a political system, to

change the allocation of power, takes years and years. Bernie

Sanders is and will be one of the movement's leaders. There are other

leaders, Elizabeth Warren, other progressives who are sounding the

same alarm, people need to be mobilised and organised. This is the

beginning of what may be four years or eight years or 12 to begin to

reverse the concentration of income and wealth and political power in

the United States. Or there's an alternative, and you posited it

yourself not so long ago in response to a media question, and that is the

album the establishment feeling we've talked about in this

interview, the raw anger with many Americans that their lot doesn't

seem to be improving, that feeling is actually channelled into Donald

Trump's campaign, that he is the other antiestablishment guy in this

election season, alongside Bernie Sanders, and bizarrely, although

he's certainly not coming from the left, Donald Trump made hoover up

some of Sanders's discontented supporters. That's certainly

possible and we see not only in the United States but also around Europe

that discontent, anxiety, in terms of jobs, wages, more economic

insecurity, has led to a welling up of antiestablishment and also

xenophobic and also unfortunately quite bigoted politics. That's what

we have on the right in the US, that's what Donald Trump

represents. In other words antiestablishment feeling can take

either a positive direction in terms of a fundamental political reform of

a democratic nature, and that's Bernie Sanders, or a kind of

authoritarian populism, which we see in Donald Trump. I think that is the

choice in America in the future. It's the choice for many countries

in the future. The bottom line in that response is there is a populist

appeal to trump as there is to Sanders, which Hillary Clinton

doesn't have. I think Hillary Clinton, if she faces Donald Trump

in the general election in the United States, will win. My concern

and my fear is that that doesn't in of itself deal with this upsurge of

populism, both authoritarian populism on the one side, the trump

side, and also the more democratic, progressive populism on the left.

She will need as a candidate and also I think certainly as a

president, were she elected, she will need, and the Democratic Party

will also need, and for that matter the Republican Party, will need to

acknowledge this upsurge and begin to address the underlying problems

of widening inequality, a shrinking middle-class, and economic

insecurity. Yeah, let's pick up on that point then. We've so far talked

about the political season and the standing of the candidates and the

parties. Let's leave aside party politics for a minute and think

about the state of America today. Not so long ago you wrote a book

called Saving Capitalism. Do you believe the political system in the

United States today and a range of choices offered is going to come

anywhere close over the next four years of saving capitalism, of

restoring America to health? Well, my book and my philosophy as it

worth is that the only way that you can have a buoyant and healthy

capitalism is if you have a growing and buoyant middle-class, the poor

can ascend into and also can provide enough aggregate demand to keep an

economy going. That's not the direction we're going in now.

Politically to get there you've got to have changes in the rules of the

game that make it possible for a buoyant and growing middle class to

thrive. Right now our politics in the United States is totally

dysfunctional, it's polarised, it's angry. If Hillary Clinton were to

become president tomorrow there is little she would be able to do

legislatively to help the middle class to turn both politically and

economically the country around. If I may say so, we've talked party

politics, if I look at your writings and your thoughts, you're not really

confident that anybody can deliver the sort of structural, fundamental

structural change America needs. To quote you," This extraordinary

concentration of income, wealth and political power in the US at the

very top imperils all else, our economy, democracy, revival of the

middle-class, the prospects for poor people, people of colour, climate

change, even a sensible policy". You seem to be saying that the

inequality in the United States today, the growing gap between the

superrich and everybody else, is corroding the entire system. And

corrupting the entire system politically, that's right, Stephen.

You might want to ask, where do I get my optimism from? I'm a very

optimistic fellow. I think the optimism will be corrected because I

look at American history, I look at the 1830s, I looked at the

progressive period between 1901 and 1916, the 1930s, the New Deal, and

to a certain extent the 1960s, and what you see in the United States is

almost a remarkable resilience, a corrective mechanism where people

put ideology aside, roll up their sleeves and get on with what has to

be done to save capitalism from its own Nexis. You seem to hang up these

days on inequality, and using legislation and regulation and

busting the big banks and the healthcare providers to, in your

view, deliver a new form of equality. But equality isn't really

an American ideal. The American dream isn't about ensuring that you

have just the same as your neighbours, it's about ensuring that

you have the possibility of rising up and your kids can rise up even

further. Why are you now so hung up on inequality? Stephen, I'm not hung

up on inequality, I'm hung up on the problem of concentrated income

wealth and political power in the United States. We've not seen this

degree of inequality since the 1890s and the so called Gilded Age where

you have a recording with and absolutely connected with that

concentration of income and wealth at the top. The American dream has

always delivered inequality. It's really what America's about. Wait a

minute, Stephen, that's absolutely wrong, America's about upward

mobility. You can't get upward mobility if you have too much

inequality. Huizing that repeatedly, economic studies confirm that. If

you lose your middle-class there's no place for the poor to ascend

into. If you lose your middle-class, and we are currently having a

shrinking middle-class, and the median wage and median household

incomes are dropping adjusted for inflation, if that occurs it's much

harder for anybody to move upward. That's what this whole battle is

about, that's what Byrne and the Bernd Boente phenomenon is about.

What's fuelling Donald Trump is about the fears and insecurities of

a middle-class that's shrinking. Are you sure you're still optimistic?

Yes I am, I am optimistic. I am optimistic because again, look at

the young people. When I'm not in politics I teach, I surround myself

with young people, 18-26, they are extraordinarily optimistic, they are

the inheritors of this system, they're the ones that are going to

make the changes required. Robert Wright, we will end with a positive

thought, thank you very much indeed for being on HARDtalk. Thank you

very much. -- Robert Reich. It's fair to say most of us are

happy to see the back of April after