Robert Reich

The U.K. arrests Price Andrew. Why shouldn’t the U.S. arrest King Trump, who appears to have done even worse?

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If no one is above the law, then no one is above the law

By Robert Reich

Police in the U.K. have arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew and Duke of York, on suspicion of misconduct in public office — after the disclosure of emails between Mountbatten-Windsor and the late disgraced banker Jeffrey Epstein. As I write this, Mountbatten-Windsor remains in custody.

We don’t know yet the specific charges. But we do know that the late Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim, accused Mountbatten-Windsor of raping her.

We also know that Mountbatten-Windsor was the U.K.’s trade envoy between 2001 and 2011, and appears to have forwarded to Epstein confidential government reports from visits to Vietnam, Singapore and China, including investment opportunities in gold and uranium in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says “no one is above the law.” The family of Virginia Giuffre says “no one is above the law, not even royalty.” Britain’s chief prosecutor says “no one is above the law.”

All of which raises awkward questions about the people implicated on this side of the pond, including the person in the Oval Office who loves to be treated like a king, and who appears in the Epstein files 1,433 times (that is, the files that have been released so far). Prince Andrew appears in them 1,821 times.

America likes to believe we gave up kings almost 250 years ago and adopted a system in which “no one is above the law.”

But Trump’s foreign policy has become a personal tool for him to channel money and status to himself and his closest associates. Since the 2024 election, the Trump family’s personal wealth has increased by at least $4 billion.

As with the British royalty of the 16th century, it’s all personal with Trump — all about expanding his power and enlarging his and his family’s wealth. Proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil? “That money will be controlled by me,” he says. The gift of a plane from Qatar? “Mine.” Investments by Middle-East kingdoms in his family’s crypto racket? “Perfectly fine.”

Like the British royalty of yore, King Trump has arbitrary power. He raises Switzerland’s tariff from 30 to 39 percent because its former president Karin Keller-Sutter “just rubbed me the wrong way.” He imposes a 50 percent tariff on Brazil because Brazil refused to halt its prosecution of Trump’s political ally, the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who was found guilty of plotting a coup. Vietnam fast-tracks approval of a $1.5 billion Trump family golf course at the same time it seeks to reduce its tariff rate.

Trump claims that Greenland is “psychologically needed,” although the United States already has a military presence there and an open invitation to expand its bases. He muses about making Canada the “51st state.” These are throwbacks to the 16th-century age of empire.

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Meanwhile, Trump has created a system of tribute and allegiance that would make Henry VIII jealous.

Apple’s Tim Cook delivers a gold-based plaque and a donation to Trump’s planned ballroom. Swiss billionaires bring a gold bar and a Rolex desk clock to the Oval Office. Jeff Bezos backs a vapid movie of Melania and hands her a check for $28 million.

Trump pardons Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire mogul who pled guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023, after which time Zhao’s Binance digital-coin trading platform becomes the engine of the Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial.

Elon Musk’s humongous quarter-billion-dollar contribution to Trump’s 2024 campaign earns Musk a dukedom — a “department of government efficiency”— and the keys to the kingdom in the form of sensitive U.S. Treasury Department software systems used to manage federal payments.

But when the Duke of DOGE starts becoming more visible than King Trump, the king banishes him and revokes his dukedom. When the banished Musk begins openly criticizing Trump, the king threatens to cut off Musk’s head in the form of cutting him and his SpaceX off from valuable government contracts. This puts an end to Musk’s impertinence.

The new TikTok (on which Trump has more than 16 million followers) will continue operating in the United States — but now with the financial backing of Trump ally Larry Ellison’s Oracle, Trump’s allied Emirati investment firm MGX (which has already invested in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company), and Silver Lake, teamed up with the private equity firm founded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Trump allows Nvidia to sell chips to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and extends military guarantees to Qatar — all of which have invested in the Trump family empire. (Emirati-backed investors plowed $2 billion into World Liberty Financial.)

Instead of national glory, Trump demands personal glory — to get the Nobel Peace Prize, to put his name on the Kennedy Center and Penn Station, and other major monuments and buildings.

If his commands are not met, he punishes. Because Norway didn’t give him a Nobel (it wasn’t Norway’s to give anyway), he “no longer feels obliged to think only of peace.” Because performers refuse to appear at the “Trump-Kennedy” Center, he shutters it.

Instead of bureaucracies, America now has a royal entourage. Instead of institutions, we now have royal prerogative. Instead of legitimacy based on the will of the people, there’s divine right (“I had God on my side,” “God was protecting me,” “God is on our side”).

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We will march against King Trump on the next “No Kings Day” on March 28 — hopefully making it the biggest protest in American history.

But the arrest of the former Prince Andrew raises an issue that goes way beyond protesting and marching. King Trump was evidently involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s nefarious doings. We don’t know exactly how because there’s been no criminal investigation. But shouldn’t there be?

Trump has also been enriching himself and his family through his public office, violating multiple laws about conflicts of interest.

If the U.K. can arrest the former Prince Andrew on evidence of such wrongdoing, why shouldn’t America arrest King Trump? If no one is above the law in the U.K., not even royalty, presumably no one is above the law in the U.S., not even a president.

Pam Bondi obviously won’t investigate Trump because she’s part of King Trump’s court. But what about a group of state attorneys general?

Almost 250 years after we broke with George III, the question must now be faced: Are we a monarchy or a nation of laws?

Source: The U.K. arrests Price Andrew. Why shouldn’t the U.S. arrest King Trump, who appears to have done even worse?

Robert Reich: Enough 

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Trump Crime Family

From Minneapolis to Davos, people are joining together against Trump’s tyranny.

By Robert Reich January 25, 2026

Friends,

Enough.

I believe the shots that killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good are the shots heard ‘round the world that will topple the Trump regime.

From Minneapolis to Davos, people are joining together against Trump’s tyranny.

In Minnesota, they are joining across ethnicity, race, and class against Trump’s gestapo tactics, repression, and murders. Solidarity is spreading to other cities.

In Europe, they are joining across national boundaries against Trump’s threats to their sovereignty, the European Community, and NATO.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in a speech that drew a standing ovation from world leaders at Davos, called on “middle powers” like Canada and Europe to form a new alliance against economic coercion from the world’s great powers (by which he clearly meant Trump’s United States and Putin’s Russia).

Across America and across the world, people are realizing it’s not possible to appease America’s dictator. The only way to deal with him is to stand up to him — and the only way to stand up to him is by joining together against him.

Trump backed down from his threatened tariffs on Europe for not supporting his acquisition of Greenland, because Europe and Canada held firm.

Of course, Trump is now hitting back. He’s openly contemplating using the Insurrection Act against Americans who oppose him. He’s threatening Carney’s government with 100 percent tariffs on all Canadian products coming into the U.S. if Canada makes a deal with China. The mad dictator is losing his mind.

Europeans and much of the rest of the world have lived under dictatorships. Until now — until Trump — Americans had not.

Yet the “greatest generation” of Americans — including many of our parents and grandparents — risked their lives fighting dictators so that this country would remain free and democratic.

So far, two Americans, both age 37, have given up their lives in Minneapolis in resisting the dictator now occupying the Oval Office.

We must now join together, all of us, to peacefully and decidedly end his dictatorship.

In memory of parents and grandparents who made the supreme sacrifice — in memory of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — we must bring down this regime. The first step is a massive general strike.

We will say loudly and clearly: Enough.

 

The rot at the top

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There is growing rot at the top of our system. And its stench can no longer be ignored

By Robert Reich

Friends,

Ten months of this shit. Enough to make one scream, run stark naked in the streets, mount a revolution.

But we have to play the long game. In that long game, America learns from this catastrophe — and turns those lessons into laws, rules, and norms that prevent this from ever happening again.

Much has been revealed lately, both about Trump and the rot at the top of our system.

Trump’s attempted cover-up of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein has riveted the nation’s attention to the moral depravity of many rich and powerful men who raped children, with impunity.

Trump’s celebration of the Saudi crown prince who ordered the brutal killing of a Washington Post reporter has shown the moral vacuity of the CEOs who flocked to the White House dinner to honor the prince because they want his investments.

Trump’s blatant threats against corporate media whose journalists ask him hard questions and whose comedians ridicule him — and media executives’ chickenshit, obsequious responses to those threats — are exposing the dangers of giant media corporations controlling our access to the truth.

Trump’s wheeling and dealing with tech company oligarchs are revealing the cozy, incestuous ways wealth and power are concentrating in fewer and fewer hands.

Trump’s acceptance of gifts, bribes, payoffs, kickbacks, and perks from those seeking handouts shows how a demagogue cashes in on his power.

His awards of pardons, government contracts, regulatory exemptions, tax subsidies, and lower tariffs to those who bribe him reveal how an authoritarian builds power through favors.

His uses of criminal investigations, tax audits, regulatory enforcement, withholding of government funds, and vicious public smears exhibit how a neofascist punishes opponents.

None of this is entirely new to American politics, but it has never happened on this scale — or with this much shameless abandon.

Most average working Americans abide by laws and norms. Most are kind and decent.

But there is growing rot at the top of our system. And its stench can no longer be ignored.

It’s the essence of Trump and his regime. It’s also, sadly, the moral squalor of too many rich and powerful Americans.

Playing the long game requires that the rest of us learn from this revolting era — learn why the wealthy and powerful must be constrained, and learn how to constrain them.

Learn what integrity requires at the highest reaches of our government, in the c-suites of our corporations, in our universities, law firms, nonprofits, and media.

Learn that the most significant divide in America is not between the left and the right but between the bottom and the top — between the vast majority of Americans without wealth or power, and a tiny minority holding most all of it.

And resolve to prevent such moral rot from ever again taking over our nation.

Source: What I fear Trump will do with his war – Robert Reich