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COMMENTARY THE COFFEE KLATCH ... MARCH 15TH 2025 with Robert Reich and Heather lofthouse Trump’s Assault on Speech PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPj1XUFyE6k Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
Trump’s Assault on Speech \| The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich Robert Reich Premiered Mar 15, 2025 1.16M subscribers ... 187,247 views ... 11K likes The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich The authoritarian abduction of Mahmoud Khalil. A Tesla sales event on the White House lawn. Democrats rolling over for the Trump-Musk coup. Heather and I tackle this week's biggest stories on today's Coffee Klatch. The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich Transcript 0:01 and it is the Saturday C coffee clutch with Heather Lofthouse and yours truly Robert R uh Heather it's awfully good to see you we missed you last week oh thank you I was at a friend's 50th birthday it was pretty fantastic Mel it was great thank you for letting me out of the coffee clutch for one you remember I just once just once that was but Michael was terrific I watched you all Michael did a wonderful job and Michael will be back uh by popular demand and maybe we maybe the three of us can do a clotch together of course of course we're going to okay how are you my big question for you is we are we are coming up to eth eight weeks of this Scourge this horrible darkness that has descended on America called the Trump regime I'm not going to call it the Trump Administration ever the Trump regime how are you doing I mean you did get away for for a birthday party did that help mean it helped for about 11 seconds um 1:02 how I hate it when you ask me this CU do you want my real answers I know I mean on the one hand it's terrible it's Grim it's scary it's anxiety-provoking it's maddening it's shocking all of those things and so I can give you my list of what I do yes last night I played horse with my kid which basketball you know where you're shooting shooting Hoops um and that was like the highlight of my day you know you cherished the the little things but I have to actively say okay this is Magic remember this is Magic enjoy this right now because this is a fabulous experience so that's my kind of answer how are you doing well I'm doing all right but you know I remember uh the pandemic and thinking how bad things were and how frightening it was uh but this is a very different kind of bad and frightening and everybody I speak with one of the first things they say is uh how bad can it get 2:04 have we reached the bottom yet and obviously we have not reach the bottom every day there is a new uh undermining uh I mean look at I mean we're going to talk what are we going to talk about today by the way let's talk about the state of free speech Let's talk about musk and his Tesla at the White House with President Donald Trump let's talk about the economic news of the week I'm going to torture you with a clip because this is my favorite thing to do and it make that makes me feel better um and then a million other things that we'll I'm sure get into okay well uh I you know the the Free Speech which was first on your list I the my real concern because I am um a professor I did retire so I'm a professor of Meritus uh I care a lot about our universities uh not just because the I care about learning and teaching uh and research but also our universities are the key to our national 3:03 competitiveness and you know every time somebody mentions China and worries about keeping our national security it is the great research universities of America that are doing all of this free speech is essential to our universities it's a Cornerstone of democracy and this week was a real blow and in fact it it happened starting uh a week ago uh when a a graduate student at Columbia University uh was a was basically arrested was detained uh his family didn't know where he was this particular graduate student was here in the United States legally he has a green card or had a green card which means that you are a permanent resident you are entitled basically to all of the uh rights and you have the responsibilities of citizenship but you don't have a quite a citizenship yet you're on the 4:00 way to becoming a citizen uh and this fellow what did he do he said things he didn't he said things peacefully he negotiated uh and he was was a leader uh of a a set of things that the administration doesn't like doesn't want and that is an attack on Free Speech if there ever was an attack on free speech and I'm sorry it makes me it infuriates me I know of course it does and you're also a lawyer by the way so we can lean on you for a lot today to talk about Free Speech but so Mahmud khil is his name and he was a lead negotiator as you said and an organizer of the pro Palestine um protests and also occupation at Colombia but it's been wild to see what the administration has said the terms they've used the phrases they've used um to say why it is that he has been detained which is not clear right so we have things like um saying 5:02 that there are potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences to his presence here you know and then the term terrorist terrorist activity it's been equated with terrorism and we hear a lot about anti-Semitism uh and uh let me let me just make it very very clear and you know this Heather I mean I'm Jewish uh I am not anti-semitic obviously I have had over the last year and a half I've had huge problems with what the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has done in Gaza I mean I am not alone there are many people who feel uh that what Netanyahu did in Gaza and is continuing to do in Gaza is inhumane and we speak up about it that does not make us anti-semitic it does not make us anti-israel it doesn't make it I mean when has it been and when is it a a a 6:05 problem of terrorism or a problem of of of of kind of National Security to speak your mind about what another government's people are doing to its own people I mean we this is what bothers me of course it does and that's the strangle hold of authoritarianism right I mean this is not what we've had in this country before this is not a democracy I mean when you can't speak your mind and peacefully protest it's a problem and exactly I mean what before before this arrest and it was an arrest uh and detention I mean he's in prison uh they wouldn't even let him have a lawyer for a while I mean also this verb Bob they disappeared him I mean I didn't even know that that was a transitive verb they have dis they dis you disappear people I mean that to me is not what happens in America this is what authoritarian regimes do by the way they 7:03 disappear people uh that is the verb they the authoritarian regimes use uh and uh and and it's a slippery slope Heather because if you if you basically say uh merely anybody on a green card or anybody on a Visa or or anybody who's here in America who says things that the administration equates with terrorism or doesn't like I mean what are we we're back to Joe McCarthy and the Communist witch hunts of the early 1950s uh we're back where people uh but this time people can be imprisoned and expelled and and and detained and thrown out of the United States uh because they have certain views I mean this man was was peaceful there's no there's no charge here that he did anything criminal that he did anything violent I know and this is in the name of anti-Semitism when so many of these tactics have been used against the Jewish people over the centuries is also not lost on 8:02 me well it's not lost on me either and this again suppose uh three months from now the Trump Administration equates any criticism of the Trump Administration with terrorism or any criticism of the Trump Administration as uh as a justification for detaining people and suppose it's not limited just to people with green cards or visas suppose it's also extends to anybody anybody I mean we're into dictatorship and we're into the the the nightmare of totalitarianism of tyranny the other thing is this is convenient because it's on the University campus so we have been watching the Trump Administration go after universities I saw in the New York Times whenever it was two days ago you know two 2,000 9:00 workers will be laid off from John's Hopkins related to cuts to usaid NIH and NSF I mean what's happening at universities more broadly and why is it happening uh well this is really important because the the pretext used against this graduate student uh really is a pretext it's not anti-Semitism it is anti- University the Trump Administration and many Republicans have really put in their crosshairs American universities uh because American universities have been the centers for for you know for 60 80 years of of of progressivism uh of a lot of so-called leftist thought uh and a lot of uh a lot of criticism of the United States and criticism generally speaking that a lot of uh mainstream or conser atives don't 10:00 like and so this is an opportunity Trump and and JD Vance I mean JD Vance has even said what we need to do and he said this just uh within the last six months way before uh this was connected to anti-Semitism he said what we need to do is what Victor Orban did in Hungary uh in order to get the universities in line we ought to say to the universities they must uh uh sort of uh not just be bastions of of left-wing uh liberalism or progressivism they've got to be also conservative they've got to they've got to sound the conservative message uh or or not exist right or not exist that's right or not exist in order to survive and he called um university professors enemies the enemy the enemy I mean this is JD Vance uh who Yale Law School class of I don't know what it was it class of 12 13 I know why I know that 11:05 well you know you know a lot about universities because uh Heather I mean we are all of us we are educated universities we are at the educated class uh there is a lot of what Trump and the Republicans want to do to stir up resentment against people who have college degrees uh this is another part of it and public unities are so important you know getting kids in from community colleges and moving people through the system when they that's how what they want and the funding is going to be cut for so many levels exactly California University of California Berkeley if I may put in a plug here of the University of California Berkeley is is is a huge engine of upward Mobility I mean onethird of my students in my big 800 person class uh called wealth and poverty onethird of them were transfers 12:04 from community colleges onethird of Berkeley undergraduates are transfers from community colleges I mean think of think of how uh poor and workingclass families can manage to get a first generation through universities they do it because they go to a community college first it's very inexpensive and then they transfer into a a public university like Berkeley or UCLA or another great Public University but but what is the Trump Administration doing it is cutting the funding the National Science Foundation as you said the National Institutes of Health the uh all all of the ways in which research is conducted at our great research universities many of them public well what are we going to do what what happens uh to not only students but what happens to research what happens to our ability to compete in the world I I mean this is this is like uh you know cutting 13:03 us off at the knees in terms of competition with China and think about all of the things that have come out of universities that have been federally funded the internet you know for one and then all of the I mean scientific research you Lo it it builds over time so to cut huge swaths out and to delete files and to lose um you know the progress R is catastrophic I have a friend who told me I never thought I'd see the day where we're trying to make cancer great again I mean really we're cutting off all of this critically important medical research yeah it's it's it really hurts uh these ba univ universities basically there are two kinds of research that are critically important one is science and computer and Engineering research I mean that's all a big big deal uh and that's why uh we have around the Bay Area you know the 14:02 Silicon Valley and all of these offshoots coming from Stanford and Berkeley that have created just extraordinary extraordinary inventions I mean nobody saing life saving let's be lifesaving and that's the other part of universities it's the medical part uh and all of the National Institutes of Health all of that has been put into life-saving basic research in universities uh and well a lot of that has just stopped it has just stopped uh John's Hopkins laid off what 2,000 faculty members wasn't faculty it was workers so it was a mix I think a lot of them were related working overseas as part of nonprofits related to the university etc etc yeah but 2,000 I mean it's the biggest layoff they've had to do ever um and then we watch go no you you go no youo all right youo I mean we also we there is a there is a connection here between research and 15:05 free speech and and universities as a uh as an engine of upward Mobility I mean you put it all together and what the Trump Administration and musk are doing is basically cutting off a Lifeline uh for young people who are upwardly mobile who want to be upwardly mobile workingclass and poor kids but also a Lifeline of American research and development uh and this is this is this is certifiably nuts I mean it's absolutely crazy uh we need another Free Speech movement in this country I remember the first free speech movement coming out of Berkeley by the way in 1964 the fall of 1964 uh and uh it was a a big an important movement it it it shaped and reshaped how America functioned but it's hard to have a free speech movement when 16:01 you have you know all the federal funding being cut not to mention federal workers so much of it to universities and then when you look at the press and you look at the state of billionaire power over communication over information over speech and you w what's happening this combination of things right I mean we have Jeff Bezos at the Washington Post shifting things around we have Elon Musk it starts with the oligarchy that is Trump and musk and Bezos uh and uh and you know others Zuckerman others Zuckerberg uh PE people who are who have a huge amount of wealth and a huge amount of power in this country that's what the oligarchy is all about but what they are doing now is showing themselves for who they really are and what their values really are and as they have greater and greater control over our 17:01 Communications ecosystems uh whether we're talking about social media or the real media I mean Jeff Bezos is strangling uh The Washington Post uh then there is no opportunity for disent you are strangling the opportunities for people to speak out and be heard uh you know the these Free Speech absolutists you know Elon Musk calls himself a free speech absolutist well he's just the opposite of a free speech absolutist because if you have so much wealth and so much power you can drown out the free speech of everybody else and that is exactly what's happening I know and then of course there was the advertisement for Tesla that happened on the south lawn of the White House this week speaking of free speech talk about a conflict of interests oligarchs billionaires money equals power I mean do you remember of course you do in the Clinton administ ministration where there were he was in so much trouble President Clinton for 18:02 renting out or selling out or lending out the um Lincoln bedroom to people who had big big donors they were accusing him of doing that because there was a perception that the system was rigged and that rich people had undue influence well the perception was was correct and it's even more correct today uh it is I mean what what is the continuous almost almost daily uh contractual relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump well Elon Musk says to Trump I'm going to give another $100 million into your campaign coffers to sell your agenda to the American public and what does Trump do oh I'll give you a commercial for Tesla right on the grounds of the White House and I will almost read verbatim a Tesla commercial and you can both we can both be in that Tesla commercial what is going on I mean this is this is the not 19:03 only a nightmare version of American capitalism it is a nightmare version of the oligarchy taking over everything I know Bob it's so Grim what do we do well well what we what we do is we we alert people to what's going on so they are equipped and they can alert others I mean the only antidote to what is going on is an informed public uh and what they want what you know what the oligarchy wants is for all of us to be so angry with each other you know you know the magas versus the Democrats versus the you know that we we're we're so angry with each other we don't look up and see where all the wealth and power have really gone and that's up to the top I know it so uh I think we have to talk next about the state of the country's budget and the have to oh yes we have to resolution it's it's part of 20:03 the same story it's part of the same story because you got uh you know Democrats my old friend James Carville you remember James Carville the political oper under Clinton administration he's in the New York Times all the time James Carville said what democrats should do is basically lie down go to sleep and play dead that is what Democrats many Democrat seem to be doing Chuck really good at it they're really convincing Chuck Schumer who's the minority leader in the Senate right now of the Democrats uh well what did he do with regard to the budget resolution here was an opportunity an opportunity and the house Democrats under hakeim je Jeff they took the opportunity here's an opportunity for Senate Democrats to join with house Democrats and be heard and be seen on what Trump and musk are doing 21:01 usurping the power under article one of the Constitution of Congress as the power of the purse which should be exercised by Congress that's what the founders of the country felt was important that's that's why we have checks and balances uh but what did Schumer do uh he basically surrendered he said okay I'll go I will go along with a Republican continuing resolution I will not use this as an opportunity to say no Democrats are not going to continue to provide funding to a government that is already shutting down under musk and Trump we're not going to give you a continuing resolution when you guys are not continuing to run government why should we I know and there have been so many people who are angry about this and it's not just the left of the left and it's not just you know the usual suspects and I know the 22:00 New York Times wrote a piece that said it's a generational divide but it's more than about ideology listen Nancy Pelosi was upset about this was upset about Schumer and what Schumer has you know his his his surrender I mean Susan Rice was upset about Su about humor surrender uh Bob I think a lot of us want to see a fight we want to see not a fight capital F but some with fight we want to see some opposition movement exactly absolutely there has to be there has to be if I were young again and if I were in politics you what so young I would I would I would do what Bernie Sanders is doing Bernie Sanders is going out to Red States yeah that young guy you'd do what that if you were young you'd do what Bernie Sanders is doing who's ag3 and Bernie and Bernie is summoning I mean crowds 3,000 5,000 9,000 uh in Detroit and he's and and he's going out and he's saying what needs to be said and and people are responding people want to hear that kind of opposition because 23:07 they know what's happening in Washington is a uh you know is is is is just is just beyond belief it it's something that should never occur we're losing our democracy day by day and unless we stand up and yell unless Democrats act like the loyal opposition or the opposition I mean why do we have a Democratic party I know in his narrative people are eating it up because it's true and when you finally tell show people what you said earlier the Millionaires and the billionaires ruling and taking over and you point it out people are so hungry for this not to be the case not to be every area interest Heather this is happening I mean in every area of policy and every area of American life I mean look at the economy uh and you said that was on our list to talk about but let me 24:04 you know I used to be an economic adviser I taught economics I you know I am a professor of political economy was I mean the economy is something that people live in every day uh and millions of Americans voted for Trump because he said he would fix the economy they didn't know that the economy was actually pretty good but prices had risen and they wanted prices to come down and now what is Trump doing he's putting tariffs on all kinds of imports steel and aluminum and imports from China and what are those tariffs doing they are increasing yes and they're increasing costs for Americans and the working class is paying through the nose is going to be paying even more uh and it's slowing the economy down and meanwhile the stock market is in freefall uh because everybody is worried 25:04 about uh who's going to be able to buy all the things that America is producing and afford all of the import charges and import fees especially as other nations start retaliating with their own tariffs on our exports which is already happening you know trade Wars trade we should not be surprised about trade Wars and I how about Wall Street you know was reeling and shocked and upset what did they think was going to happen when they supported him well very good question U I think that most people I have talked with on Wall Street assumed that Trump would back off with the tariffs they assumed that as if there was any indication that the stock market was reacting negatively to tariff talk uh that Trump would say no no that's I won't do it as he looked like he was doing and as he sort of did in the first 26:03 uh term he was going to be much more of a of a tariff president in his first term uh that he actually turned out to be uh but no he is sticking to his guns and Fox News says oh that's great uh he's sticking to his guns he's doing exactly what he said he would do meanwhile everything is being destroyed not only the stock market but the bond market and then it also trickled this is the only where this is where trickle down economic really does sadly affect average working people because people are not able to keep their jobs and they're not able to keep their pay and they're not able to pay the cost of living which continues to rise and this is a huge problem huge problem but what about the tax cuts describe the circle for us well it's it's interesting because Trump's logic there's no logic to this but what he says is that his tariffs his big beautiful tariffs are going to bring in all of this money and 27:05 we will actually have enough money that we will be able to have a gigantic tax cut what he doesn't say and here's the truth and this is why Democrats need to be screaming from the rafters what he doesn't say is that the people who are disproportionately paying for the tariffs are Americans tariffs are like regressive taxes they hit the poor and working class pocketbooks much much much more significantly than they hit the pocketbooks of the wealthy and the paychecks of the wealthy and the paychecks of of versus the paychecks of average working people and yet the tax cut like the first Trump tax cut is primarily going to benefit the wealthy put those together and you have a gigantic redistribution upward from working people and the poor to the very wealthy that is a scandal of course it 28:06 is now you're a former Secretary of Labor so you know this better than I but presidents often get too much credit for a good economy and you know get blamed for a bad economy right there's this idea that the president has so much power over the economy and we forget about sort of macro forces and the fed and all of it but in this case it feels like his actions really are affecting a lot in a way that we haven't seen before what do you say to that you're exactly right Heather I mean normally the economy is you know a variable and it's affected by a thousand different things and a president should not be blamed or accredited uh when the economy goes down or up but Donald Trump inherited a pretty good economy all of the economic 29:00 statistics and I am drenched in economic statistics most of the time all of them on inauguration day uh were really really going in exactly the right direction we were coming in for a soft Landing inflation was way way down it was close to 2% uh the economy was generating a lot of new jobs uh and the jobs were paying well they were people for the first time were getting more money in than they were paying out uh you know the the PE the American economy that Trump inherited was one of the best economies that any president has inherited and then what he single-handedly with his tariff talk and his you know kind of Chainsaw which is which is busk his brutal riding Ru shot over the federal government closing down Federal programs uh that people rely on threatening the veterans have Administration and now he's and musk are threatening Social Security and Medicaid 30:04 and and even Medicare uh well people are scared justifiably they're scared and so you saw musk this week said most of most of federal spending is entitlements yeah and entitlements means Social Security Medicare and Medicaid hello that first of all he's wrong because he left out National Defense altogether and that's a gigantic part of the federal budget uh and the federal budget deficit uh some of which goes to him yes which goes to space X and satellites yeah but at the same time people pay into social security for their whole working lives they pay into Medicare and uh and half of America's children are dependent on Medicaid you mean to tell me that musk is now going after Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid what's that going to do to this 31:01 country you think the Eon Affairs Veterans Affairs that's going to savings and you know if you think that people are scared now and angry now and pulling in and stopping you know and saving because they're afraid to spend wait until these next round of cuts go through I mean yes you're right Donald Trump and Elon Musk together are are wrecking the American economy and it is rare historically that you can have basically one man president and his you know richest person in the world assistant wreck an economy but they're I know but approval ratings are down disapproval ratings are up so I saw a CNN poll that said 56% disapproval for Trump on the economy and then the Quinn aak polls his um disapproval has gone up since February 32:02 to March somewhere I wrote it down 53% disapproval now compared to 42 approval and last month it was 49 um disapproval to 45 and that's on the economy on other things people are say oh he's doing immigration it's like that's he's doing great on that but the econ the economy is everything um and uh as as James Carville to go do you know to use today yeah well I mean but James carille did say years ago it's the economy stupid and it is the economy stupid it's all really basically the economy that's what drives election don't call me stupid that's what drives elections uh but know Heather with the polls showing that Americans are catching on to Trump and are catching on to the damage he and musk are doing uh well so what uh we don't have an election in terms of a a you know even a midterm election for another year more than a year and a half uh so let's hope that Americans remember 33:07 this damage uh and I I don't want people to suffer I don't want people to be harmed uh but if it continues going in the direction it's going uh this harm and damage and pain is going to be widely widely inflicted right but people some people keep saying give him a chance you know I see you know some family members and other people are like maybe they're kind of white knuckling like maybe it's not as bad maybe it's not as bad um and you see I mean the Department of Education polls by the way are also is not people are not in favor of dismantling Department of Education but when are they going to say okay it's bad he's not the businessman I thought he was I'm not calling for the con anymore yeah hopefully uh they will say that soon but I want to go back to Schumer and the Democrats if there is 34:00 nobody on the other side it's telling the truth then the lies uh stick and and Trump is a remarkable con man as we all know I mean he he he cannot breathe without lying I mean Lies come out of his ears uh and so uh he may be able to convince the American public what that they're better off uh that prices are not going up or that uh don't worry about it because over the longer term we'll all be better off oh this is little I've got your back you're part of my club uh well this is again this is this is why it's so important to get the truth out uh and Heather this is why I am so grateful to you and to inequality media Civic action for all of the work that you and we are doing to try to get the truth out I mean it's a little bit but it still every bit is very important and it helps a great 35:00 deal and I'm grateful for what you do today and also what you've done over the years because we keep pulling Clips so you spoke at an occupied Berkeley um it was the Savio Memorial lecture here oh I you know I remember wait a minute I remember that this is during uh the Occupy Movement uh and and uh the local police in Berkeley and the campus police were battling students I mean the students were trying to peacefully demonstrate uh it shows you how far we've come U not far enough we're not far enough but let's listen to what you say cuz I do think it's inspiring and we need to listen to it again this was from November 2011 now the first amendments right to speech that is not always convenient it is not always inexpensive it is sometimes messy and because it's sometimes inconvenient and sometimes expensive and sometimes messy just like democracy there is a Temptation sometimes to want 36:00 to contain it to limit it but it is more important than it has ever been that we all go out of our way every one of us leaders politicians those of us who have authority and those of us who do not have authority it becomes doubly important that we honor the First Amendment and that we are willing and make ourselves willing to to pay the price of freedom of speech and also indirectly or because freedom of speech is so related to democracy directly the price of a democratic system of [Applause] government so good well thank you put it on a loop let's put it on a loop it's well it could be on a loop I mean we're back to where were then but that was a much 37:00 friendlier Administration I mean that was you know Free Speech issues were were already boiling up but that was under the Obama Administration I mean we're now we're now under a vicious uh oppressive totalitarian Administration uh and so free speech becomes obviously that much more important but one thing you said and you said this in the leadership class that I took with you in 2006 or something which is people you were calling on people who are politicians who have formal Authority but also people who don't have formal Authority can be leaders will you talk about that for just one second to give me some hope well yes because some of the greatest leaders in our society I mean Martin Luther King Jr for example uh did not have formal Authority it wasn't even it wasn't as if a president or anybody else had designated him uh with the cloak of authority no he was a leader because he spoke to the language that people responded to he understood what people 38:04 needed he understood how to break through to them uh and get them to be leaders as well I remember Heather uh when I was uh briefly not that briefly after for a number of years a chairman of common cause which is a wonderful organization it was headed by a man that time named Bob Edgar and Bob used to say all the time to me and to the board and to common cause we are the leaders we've been waiting for and what did he mean by that he meant he meant just exactly what Martin Luther King meant uh that is we don't need formal Authority uh to be leaders we can lead be leaders and we can lead and then we need to lead uh by the content of our character by our ability to s synthesize what is happening around us and frame it in ways 39:01 that other people can understand uh and to give people the assurance that they have power uh one of the big problems today is a lot of people feel powerless uh they feel depressed they feel that they have no agency uh and that is a self-fulfilling prophecy because if you don't feel like you have any power you don't have any power and in terms of free speech and protecting dissenting voices which we've been talking about you have had Republican friends a few of them over the years and I saw this week that your friend Senator Allan Simpson passed away do you want to talk about that for a minute well it makes me very sad I mean Allan was 93 years old uh yeah he was a Republican senator uh he was controversial I mean a lot of Democrats uh remember him from the Anita Hill Clarence Thomas hearings in which he was not kind to Anita Hill uh but I met him when I was Secretary of Labor in 1990 I guess I met him really at the 40:04 start must have been 1993 we were at a uh dinner one of these you know endless interminable Washington dinners together uh but everybody was standing up beforehand because everybody likes to circulate at those kinds of dinners and uh glad hand everybody else but you know I'm pretty short I I was under 5 feet tall um and I still am Alan Simpson Allan Simpson was six foot I don't know 6' five 6'6 um and I we start talking and I wanted to talk to him but I couldn't hear anything he was saying because he's you know in a different Stratosphere than I am so I stood on a chair uh and uh so our faces were right next to each other face to face and he thought it was hysterically funny U and he has a wonderful sense of humor had a wonderful sense of humor and so we we struck up of friendship uh and that friendship 41:00 maintained itself even though my staff every time I at the labor department every time I told them I wanted to go out to lunch with Alan Simpson They said no no you can't do that you haven't even had uh enough lunches with Democratic senators how are they going to feel if you go out with a Republican senator so Allen and I used to sneak out you know like sure you were you know no one Incognito no one noticed you two it was like an elicit ofair we'd we'd make reservations at a restaurant that nobody would have ever heard of and you'd come through the back and he'd go through right a I'm going to miss so sorry to hear that I bet you he's a wonderful he was a wonderful man oh thank you for sharing those stories with us do you know what today is I did this to you a year ago and you didn't it is our clot versary we started having these coffees three years ago today well I can't believe that it's been three years ago and I I that really I salute my partner 42:04 my clch partner on our CL B and and it's here here here here I mean how many have we done it must be three2 52 a year times three feels like 156 that's a lot many many more than those than than that but but Heather it has been such a treat for me uh and I hope we do another three or six or 12 years um the the difference we've seen a lot of change over the past 3 years uh and uh not all positive change by any stretch of the imagination uh but I do continue to have faith in the ability of this country uh to snap out of these deliriums uh and to really uh not achieve but get back on the track toward trying to achieve social justice uh and equal rights and 43:04 equal political rights and also our democracy so everybody out there I'm not going to give you a you know my my weekly sermon uh I do we like it that's what we're here for and can I just say what an honor it is to be able to have coffee with you each week and I know that so many I represent so many of us who want to be asking you questions and wanting to be talking to you and hearing from you and so thank you for being so candid as we cover the news of the week together in this conversational way it's been so special and I know very special to me as well um and I also want to thank uh Michael Lanas Calderon uh who is our producer and who substit sometimes co-host uh and also I want to thank Nai Bradford who uh is our editor and has done a wonderful job uh and the whole crew at inequality media a Civic action but mostly I want to thank you 44:00 out there for your tenacity uh for your courage uh for your I know it's hard but trying and I know you are trying to maintain your optimism see you next week [Music]

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