It's the Brian Larry Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone.

With us now, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Among our topics, President Trump's firing of the head of the Bureau

of Labor Statistics after Friday's disappointing jobs report, Trump said it was rigged, but cited

no evidence. Sound familiar? This is widely being received as an effect of Trump's tariffs.

And also, some commentators are saying, we're now more like China.

Maybe you heard a version of this on Marketplace last night.

The politics determine the official jobs numbers rather than the other way around.

So the reliability of U.S. economic data is no longer a global bedrock, potentially.

We'll sample from Trump economics advisor Kevin

has its explanation on Meet the Press and get Robert Reich's reaction. But Reich also has a new

book out today, a memoir of his life and work in labor economics and how he got to where we are

economically in this country today

and how he proposes to improve things. The book is called Coming Up Short, A Memoir of My America.

Robert Rice has recently retired as professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, still a columnist

for Newsweek and The Guardian, and he's a highly subscribed newsletter writer on Substack,

in addition to the book, which again is called Coming Up Short, A Memoir of My America.

Professor Rice, always good to have you on the show. Welcome back to WNIC.

Well, thank you, Brian. Thank you for inviting me.

Before we even get to things like tariffs and labor statistics and interest rates,

you know, when you were with President Clinton, I think he argued that interest rates should

be lower than they were. I'll invite you to talk about the opening of the book in which your

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