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COMMENTARY THE COFFEE KLATCH ... MAY 10TH 2025 With Robert Reich and Heather lofthouse The Biggest Presidential Con in History PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auc_x9lq9Tk Peter Burgess COMMENTARY More and more people are being harrassed by the 'suthorities' in an increasingly authoritarian United States of America. This is being enabled ... indeed orchestrated ... by President Trump. My take on Donald Trump is not at all good ... I think he is an awful human being, a crook and someone who ought to have been put in jail a long time ago! But, it really bothers me that a big number of Americans voted for Trump to become President, not once, but twice! I now have political reform high on my agenda. The idea that anyone would ever vote for Trump raises questions for me about the sommon sense of voters ... but they did, and we all need to take a hard look in the mirror to figure out what has to be done to fix this critical problem. Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse are quite animated this week which is encouraging, not to mention their conversation with a young lady who literally got manhandled at a GOP event in New York after she tried to get an answer to her reasonable question at a GOP community meeting! Peter Burgess
The Biggest Presidential Con in History \| The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich Robert Reich 1.21M subscribers Premiered May 10th 2025 The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich While the world's eyes were glued to the conclave, the con-man-in-chief took his blatant self-dealing to staggering new heights. On today's Coffee Klatch, Heather and I discuss the unprecedented scale of crypto corruption in Trump's swamp. We also speak with Emily Feiner, who was forcibly removed from Republican Mike Lawler's town hall last week for asking what it would take for the so-called 'moderate' to stand up to Trump. Robert Reich Transcript 0:02 and it is the Saturday coffee clutch with Heather Loft House and yours truly Robert Rich and Heather what is our content today no you didn't it is the conclave the big con the constitution well those cons really those that content really sounds the constant barrage the constant it is a constant barrage i mean I'm you know it is so easy to forget how much of a barrage this is i mean a lot of people I know are not even don't even want to read the newspapers or see the news because it's just so constant and people are frantic um and draining and draining uh but um and it's understandable and later on this program we're going to actually uh have a conversation with somebody who will give you even more courage to take up it's good to take on the powers the fascist powers that be right or just the elected officials in front of you elected officials who unfortunately many 1:03 of them are yeah neofascist um okay so can we please start with the new pope pope Leo I 14th Well he's American he's from Chicago the city of big shoulders the city of immigrants the city of Irish and and Italian immigrant i mean it's interesting he he is um he is uh going to be we don't know exactly but it looks like he's going to be very much in the pattern or the footsteps of Francis Pope Francis do you think so i think so but it was interesting to see the Vatican's phrasing which was the second pope from the Americas yes not and not the Gulf of America not the Gulf of the United States no not the US like let's downplay that but also he did spend what two decades in Peru i mean he really is a global leader and he was last a cardinal and he's and did you notice that when he spoke uh to the throngs in in St peter's 2:02 Square he He was He spoke in Italian and it was impeccable Italian was it i mean I assumed it was but I didn't know so did you know it was impeccable i know it because I have Italian friends who told me it was impeccable right no I know and I think that was appreciated and he's you know I think he is so he's Augustininian right and what does that mean well so he was saying and the the understanding is they pay a lot of attention to the poor and you know it's a specific there's so many different parts of Catholicism and different you know saints that people are following but so he in particular cares a lot about the poor and migrants which like you say was similar to Francis Pope Francis well is he going I mean he's he's he's described as a quote unquote moderate now I have I know what that means in the United States i think there used to be moderates in the papacy but what does it mean in the papacy i don't know as much but I'll take it i mean I 3:02 don't I think what we've seen what we know is that there have been some Twitter accounts that he is allegedly affiliated with could be his Twitter account and he came out and spoke against one thing that JD Vance had said he's my man not JD Vance the Pope yeah the Pope um and so that was interesting right so do you remember what he said or do you want me to well I think he was he was actually posting another he was posting something else but JD Vance had said uh well you know Americans uh should be most uh loyal to their families and then secondarily to their communities and thirdly to their nation and and then people who are not from our nation really come way below and and the uh what what he posted what Pope Leo posted was something about uh no Catholics and and Christians uh and and the teaching of Jesus is not hierarchical like that all people are equal all people deserve equal respect 4:01 right and there's no ranking and JD Vance is wrong I know spicy so we'll see but yeah I don't know I it seems like I mean Catholicism is huge in this world we have 8 billion people and 1.4 billion Catholics 18% whatever that is yes and in 1928 as you will remember Al Smith Catholic uh ran for president did not make it but uh and he was the first to Catholic to to run for president um but uh it just shows that uh Catholicism is a is a really even though religion is not nearly what it was is a huge force in the world in the United States in politics and also just watching it and even my friends saying woo is there white smoke yet i mean it's interesting that people are kind of paying attention also Conclave the film helped us all get 5:00 ready for this you remember I thought it was a great film oh I thought it was fantastic i saw it on a plane and I was I just couldn't stop watching it on my tiny little screen did you well I I thought that uh Reef Fines was particularly Me too is it Fines or Fiends i thought it was Fines i don't know fines you can say that it's Fines but but I thought he was great and Stanley Tui stanley Tui was fabulous but how they actually decided on this new pope um and do you but do you remember the two popes it was a movie years ago which was also fabulous i didn't see that one who was that anthony Hop sir Anthony sir Anthony yes um yeah so that's going to be well more will be revealed about where he stands on things and so we'll be looking at that i'm just glad to not have to see Donald Trump in a in the vestiments anymore i was worried when I found out that it was a United States pope i was a little nervous because there's been so much effort to you know to to satisfy Trump you know by corporations and by 6:05 everybody else and I thought could the Vatican be trying to make a a a kind of surrender in advance move to Trump but uh obviously that's not the case right well so I thought it oh my gosh I can't believe it's an American wow and then I heard about the JD Vance thing and then I thought interesting is this more like an Australia or a Canada where these moves are happening against or in spite of Trump so it's an interesting question because what we see around the world and we've talked about this a little bit in the past is that you have the Trump effect which is everybody who is against Trump is starting to align together there's more and more of an anti-Trump coalition in the United States obviously bringing people together uh who had never been brought together before around the world Canada working with Europe uh against the Trump United States uh and maybe the Vatican is part 7:01 of that as well i don't know or they just picked the the person they thought would be the best pope well but you cannot take Trump out of I know okay so speaking of Trump the corruption that is happening in front of our very eyes is so obscene and unbelievable so and what I'm thinking of is this crypto dinner and all and the money we watch going into the crypto markets and being lost by the way it's amazing and it's amazing that there is not more outrage i mean I I say this all the time every week we talk about why isn't there more outrage uh but why aren't the Democrats or even a single Republican standing up and saying you're having a dinner in the White House and a tour for the highest uh investors in your own personal personal crypto coin right so the top 220 investors in 8:00 Trump's memecoin are invited to this fancy dinner and then they're even a smaller subset is invited to a private tour and it has and and this is all remember this isn't this is not Bill Clinton and the Lincoln bedroom um which was which was rented out to make money for the Republican part of the Democratic party the DNC which was problematic and a big issue back then but no this is money into Trump trump Trump's pocket has pockets i mean this is and it's a lot of money i mean since they announced this and since it's all been going it's billions of dollars they are up and the meme coin what is what is a meme coin what is a Trump i mean how much time do you have meme coin so well there are a couple things because then there's also the stable coin which is slightly different and that's the USD1 so this is his Trump coin and so there are these markets and people are buying you know the meme coins people know when to buy and know when to sell that's the problem 9:00 certain people are getting rich and a lot of people are getting poor well Trump is obviously getting rich but when uh for example uh Elon Musk said that social security was a Ponzi scheme now we know that's right i mean no but social security is a pay as you go system right a Ponzi scheme is when you get into it expecting that the value of something will get higher because other people will be lured into it and then you can get out isn't that what a a memecoin is and isn't that what Trump is the crypto markets this is the real Ponzi scheme in the White House i mean the Ponzi a lot of losers and the losers are going to be the less connected people and the less rich i know i mean this is this is an example this is sort of small version of what's happening in the economy and society as a whole right i mean the the the wealthy get the inside information uh they know exactly when to buy and when to sell and everybody else 10:04 is sort of holding the bag the losers in the Ponzi scheme but in this one it is Trump trump is making the money and his family why did he do that i thought this was illegal well the major investors in this memecoin are foreigners international and there is something called the imaluments clause in the con you referenced it before yeah well I have so listen this is you see this this is this is his pocket constitution this is my pocket constitution do you have Thank you for bringing it do you have yours god I wrong jeans they were in my from yesterday they were yesterday everybody Everybody should have their own pocket constitution well that's why I coffee with you cuz I know you have yours well here it is this is uh this is article one uh section nine uh and it says here 'No person holding any office uh shall accept any present amalument of anything of value from a foreign state.' Well hello it doesn't say 11:05 memecoin but it practically does i mean this is Trump is violating the Constitution of the United States well this is one of our other topics for today the Constitution yeah and Trump and the the Constitution does he care about the Constitution where do we stand he said last Sunday that he doesn't know that whether he took an oath of office to the Constitution will you uphold it she asked the reporter asked how can you not know you took an oath it's now in Trump's case he's he took an oath in 2016 20 start of 2017 he took an oath uh the start of this year uh he's administered the oath there is something called an oath of office where you pledge to uphold the constitution i took it uh I administered it to all the assistant secretaries in the labor department it's a very solemn important occasion i bet and and and the and this 12:04 is an important and solemn document it's not even hard to read even somebody who is not terribly adept at reading could read this little document even if he's president you could read this document but he's being slippery he's saying I have lawyers i have lawyers they of course they're going to do I mean of course but no but yes but I don't know but I mean maybe but no and it's lawyers it's not me there's a company uh called International Freight uh that is that is going to buy publicly they've said they're going to buy up to $20 million of this Trump meme coin and then they were asked why and they said in fact I wrote it down somewhere they said it's it's to help us be more effective in getting access to the people we want to get access to we're saying the quiet part out loud i mean it's the quidd in the pro in the pro and the qual i mean absolutely but this is the president of the United States selling something to make money i know 13:04 you know that is a Ponzi scheme and international international businesses are buying it it doesn't it's it's in violation of the constitution so so it's this would benefit him privately but also his family right but then there are other examples we're seeing now of different kinds of corruption where for example Elon Musk and Starlink right there was this whole thing that happened in Lutu who is in a huge trade conversation with Trump have you been to Lutu i've been to Lutu have you yeah so it's landlock locked by South Africa it's a gorgeous mountain kingdom it's so it's stunning um but there's a lot of manufacturing and putting together of things there right when were you in Lucha um when I were I worked in global health and so it was a health trip looking at social franchising for healthcare provision anywh who um so in lutu 14:01 they're saying maybe we'll commit to having Starlink come here we'll sign that this is this is we're talking Elon Musk's Starlink satellite company he's got a you know he has a monopoly he's got 7,000 satellites circling i mean nobody else comes close i know and he keeps on getting permission for putting up more and more of them but so making these moves around Elon Musk to try and help the trade negotiation so the the State Department is saying to what other nations you use Starlink yeah no it's come out that week yeah this week it has come out is that a Is that a quid pro coin is that a corruption i think it's shady if nothing else it's it's not just shady i mean this is absurd i know Bob this is absurd these people the richest man richest human being uh on the in the world uh it gets the State Department to say to another country you can only use uh his satellites i mean what what what 15:01 kind of you know this is this is beyond corruption this is this is really a kind of a a we have a police state and we have a a a kind of a venal kind of selfdeing also I mean it just makes me think of ethics remember ethics even watching conclave I mean I don't know it was a film right fiction but there was a sense of kind of order and formality and ethics and and ethics is about what you owe to somebody I mean the public God the public right but this is just mayhem and it feels like it's all about the hustle and the con well there are only two things that Trump and Musk are interested in number one is power number two is money and they go together if you have more power you can get more money if you got more money you can get more power and they know it and this links the two of them even though Musk is supposedly on his way out he's not on his way out he's going to stay 16:04 and have influence with Trump uh he's going to be there one day a week at least um and uh and and Trump's corruption is Heather I believe it's going to catch up with them i don't think the American public even Trumpers want uh this degree of selfdeing in the White House but so as Trump is saying I don't know if I am going to follow the Constitution we don't know if I I have an obligation you're right um at the same time and then there are all these questions about due process and this is all related because basically the Supreme Court has said to the administration you have to facilitate Kilmargo Garcia's return from El Salvador where does where do these cases stand now what's happening uh well as far as I know uh the administration has not facilitated remember the Supreme Court said it ordered said quote 17:04 facilitate his return uh the administration there's nothing i mean the administration has done absolutely nothing so then what uh the Supreme Court has turned it over to a the district court the original district court uh for a hearing the district court um and the judge of the district court is now uh trying to figure out what to do you know where is he and what is his state and and how do you bring him back and what are the obligations uh I think it'll be interesting if and when it goes back to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has to clarify what you as president must do uh and he then says Trump says I'm sorry no then we're in what you keep asking me are we in a constitutional crisis then we are in a constitutional crisis but I want to be psychic and just go forward and then come back you know you know travel to the future i mean are we going to look back and say 'Okay we knew he would but it just he dragged his feet and he tried 18:02 not to and it was a power- hungry move.' Or are we going to look back and say 'We knew he was never going to do this?' Well I think historians will look back and say he was going to defy the Supreme Court from the get-go i mean his selection of J d vance clearly indicated where he was going because JD Vance on the record has said he would advise Trump to do what Andrew Jackson puditively did which is say to John Marshall who is then the chief justice of the Supreme Court you've made your decision now try to enforce it right um I'm not even sure historically that Andrew Jackson did that uh but that's JD Vance's view and Trump seems to be surrounded by people like JD Vance who uh say you don't have any obligation to follow the Supreme Court right or ignore Congress or run a third time yeah yeah i mean it's all these Well I it's hard to tell how much he's trying to be provocative Trump when he's saying I 19:03 might run a third time um but some of this is so some of it's just distraction some of it's just uh lun lunacy some of it though is very important right now and it's serious and one is defying the Supreme Court and the second is defying Congress those are the two branches of government you know talk about the Constitution hello yeah this is all about checks and balances that we all learned in high school this is all about you have congress and you have the courts and you have the president and uh these the founders were were mostly concerned about limiting the powers of the president that's what it was all about i know it so in terms of due process you saw that um I almost said Steve Bannon Steven Miller came out this week i know was redefining due process you know and there was a lot of conversation this week about what does it mean you have a 20:02 law degree i love when I get to torture you with this yeah thanks so what I mean I thought that everyone had every person I thought it was person had a right to due process habius corpus haven't we been talking about that for centuries yes we have we have not but but yes you have for several centuries i started talking about in 1688 yeah um but yeah there is something called due process which which means essentially uh it's got to be a fair hearing or some a fair process to determine whether allegations made against somebody uh are are true now it doesn't mean you have to have the same process trump keeps saying 'Well we don't we have all these thousands of people who are here illegally we're going to have a million court cases we can't have all these trials.' Well it doesn't mean you have to have a full trial it does mean you have to have a process that is independent of the accusers and it could be a very informal process but it's got to be independent of the accusers that's what due process 21:04 means and the Supreme Court has said this repeatedly uh I I think that if it gets up to the Supreme Court this issue they're bound by precedent i mean they are I should never say this Supreme Court is bound by president but this is this is pretty clear oh and we saw that yesterday that Justice Sudter passed away yes had you did you meet him um I I don't remember whether I met He um he's a good example Heather of uh the era when justices were appointed he was appointed by George HW Bush yes um and uh and and you couldn't predict exactly where they'd go as justices ideologically even though they were appointed by a conservative Republican president or a or a Democrat i remember John F kennedy appointed Byron White um who became a very conservative justice 22:01 uh but uh we don't Blackman was another one and Harry Blackman appointed by um Ronald Reagan was it Nixon nixon i'm sorry of course you know these things i just know it because of you yeah um and uh and Harry Blackman became much more liberal but it doesn't happen anymore but that's cuz we're ideologically obsessed i mean someone has to kind of come in and salute and then not use their independent logic reasoning brain they have to do what they're told to do well that's partly true um but it's also because the selection process now is so much more thorough about you know you have a whole federalist society that's for spends years going through everybody you know just making sure that the people that they are recommending to a Republican president are as conservative as right-wing as you can possibly get but even among Trump's appointees Amy Conan Bryant could actually and shows some signs of being a little bit 23:04 flexible on some of these issues i know getting in trouble um so what have we not covered yet okay so habius corpus we talked about this and what's interesting is the original act has to do with monarchy and kings i mean again back to this point well you had I mean in the 16th century you did have a writ if you were arrested and you were put in the Tower of London or wherever you were put uh you had the power um wasn't much power but you had the legal right to at least demand what you're being arrested for a lawful what what did you do what did you do right um and uh in this country were even losing that i mean the uh the student in Somerville Massachusetts who was abducted you know on and we have that tape uh well she was 24:01 not a she was she she didn't know what she did it turned out that what she had done was write uh something in the student newspaper that uh the administration the regime the Trump regime has found objectionable uh and so her her student visa was taken away well this is so contrary to the notion of the rule of law right and this is what we've we're talking about this this and these are people with visas etc right so they're trying to Let me let me go back i don't want to I don't Here we go this is this is the rule of law no I know this is the rule of law hello this is what we we this what this is what distinguishes this country uh from a you know a a tinpot dictatorship well so yeah and so this I had wrote this down so the habius corpus act of 1679 codified the process of issuing the writ and established the principle that even the king's command couldn't prevent 25:01 a person from using the writ even the king even the king's command so unfortunately Thomas Cromwell you know he was too early for to use the habes corpus but after that you know you could and uh but how are we back to this place Bob where we're talking about monarchs and tyrants and authoritarian and and Trump is planning this this military parade on his birthday on on June 14th i mean this is a good day to demonstrate there are demonstrations their demonstrations all of you all of you remember June 14th we're going to be out there demonstrating against against kings you know this is not a land a land of kings we are against kings this is what we have known presumably uh for our entire history right now Congress h is in charge of the power of the purse right where's your Yes yes it's this is article one great thank you um section i'm sorry yeah this is Should I read it to you yes please well no I won't read okay no need um so this is so wonder 26:06 this is wonderful reading so Trump you're right so Trump went and has now don gone rogue and is negotiating trade deals with the UK all week on his own i mean it feels like he's just doing his own thing unilaterally tariffs okay tariffs are also supposed to be supposed to be under Congress's power now we the you know we don't we have a bunch of of of of Republicans who run Congress who don't care who are just intimidated by Trump uh but he is taking he is usurping the power of Congress on trade as well as everything else right and so what's going to happen with the UK we don't know all the it's not um it hasn't been revealed right no we don't know the details yet um but you know to have a trade deal with the UK today uh means that what does that mean it means 27:02 tariffs may be down a little bit i mean he's already talked about changing the tariff with China from 145% down to 80% i mean he's doing all these things right by himself without any analysis it makes we still have 10% across the board also it's 10% across the board for everybody we're not even talking about that which the implications for people are extreme well the implications certainly I mean American consumers are going to pay more that 10% across the board is a tax hello it's a tax he keeps saying 'Oh we're making so much money.' Well who's the Wii i know Kimosabi i mean the United States may Treasury may be making a little bit of money but we as taxpayers as consumers consumers are actually paying the tax i know and as you see him in these press conferences and in these interviews and people say 'So you know the ports are empty.' Oh good yeah no that's good and he said 'That's great well so you know little girls are going 28:02 to have to have a few dolls instead of 30 and and everybody else is going to have to have maybe maybe just a few pencils instead of 100.' I mean what what But it's even more than that it's like first of all I have a problem with the little girls having to take on the pressure of the entire consumer market crushing by the way it doesn't have to be the beautiful little girls in their dolls but I mean he is so out of touch and this is a great opportunity to ask you cuz part of part of the rationale that is irrationale let's be clear is we're bringing back manufacturing so the fact that we used to have tons of dolls coming from China we can build them here they'll be better dolls everyone is going to be better off dun dun like that's the that's the but what does manufacturing of dolls actually look like or anything else or he wants to bring back coal mining he says yeah I'm going to bring back coal mining the man has no sense of of the 29:01 history of labor in this country i mean coal mining jobs were horrible jobs uh they were you know black lung disease uh if you had to get up in the morning and go into the the pits or manufacturing jobs were were were boring and they were sometimes dangerous it's drudgery i googled how to make dolls so like Barbies for example and you put the all the plastic goes into all these little molds and the machines by the way aren't built in America that you need on average to make these and then humans have to go in and pluck them out pluck out what the little Barbie legs you pluck the Barbie legs out of You've got to get nylon by the way also not from America to apply for the hair i mean when you actually make dolls do you put what do you do do do you have to put it all together these little That's it i mean really truly it's it's drudgery it's it's not it's not and to your point about the safety I mean we have this man this president saying government regulation tuy unions yik so these 30:04 manufacturing jobs are drudgery that aren't paid well he wants to get he's getting rid of N you know all of OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration he's getting rid of all of these regulations uh and he's getting rid of unions he doesn't like unions the only reason that manufacturing jobs in America or even mining jobs for that matter were good jobs good jobs had nothing to do with what you did it was had to do with your pay right your pay and you got good pay because you had a union behind you because you had bargaining leverage uh and the unions are down to 6% of the private sector workforce and he would like to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board i mean you see how in utterly insane this is he thinks that mining and manufacturing are the most important things that people want and need if they're workers no it's the money that 31:00 is the most important thing that people need if they're workers but he is so tuned out i mean when is the last time he hopped in his car and went to the gas station and filled up his tank of gas i think went to the grocery at least 60 years ago right i mean there's not a lot of connection between and also there seems to be a real disdain right it's h so the ports are empty yeah yeah and dock workers so do workers truck drivers and he and he doesn't understand the basics of economics either i mean he doesn't understand he has no empathy for people but put that together with not even understanding economics a trade deficit he says trade deficits are terrible why are they terrible right well it's not he doesn't have any idea why they're terrible he thinks that somehow other It's a ripoff it's a ripoff if you have to advantage it's a ripoff if you have to import it i mean it's Look at China china doesn't play quote unquote fair we do have to push back um and the Biden 32:00 administration did push back uh and we probably do need an industrial policy uh because uh you know there are very important industries we need to develop uh but to assume that you every you have these blanket tariffs like we did in 1930 the Smoot Holly tariffs that that that actually catapulted us deeper into the depression of the 1930s uh is is just ludicrous you know whose job I wouldn't want jerome Powell's he's between a rock and a hard place what is he I mean what's going to happen at the Fed well Jerome Powell uh and he was clear this week that he doesn't know what to do i mean he fair enough because if they raise interest rates uh they could be pushing the economy into a recession if they reduce interest rates they could actually be inviting inflation so he because of the tariffs because of what Trump is doing uh is in an impossible spot which from Trump's point 33:04 of view is great because Trump can blame Jerome Powell for whatever happens to the economy if if prices do take off he loves a scapegoat i mean he loves it he loves it uh Jerome Powell is going to play the scapegoat exactly and then uh his term of office is over next year and then Trump will blame him uh for it's probably inflation it's probably prices going up because of the tariffs uh and then Powell is out and he'll put somebody else in okay we'll see i mean it's important that everybody understand what's really going on here corruption well in in terms of corruption in terms of you know the the violations fundamentally of the rule of law and the constitution uh in terms of uh trade uh and uh and politics and and the you know the setting Jerome Powell up to be blamed you know these are the subtexts 34:01 of today of the of the Trump era right and we've got to make sure and then people need to understand it and we're waiting for Congress to stand up to Trump more um but one person this week who stood up to her congressperson who was incredibly motivational to watch is someone named Emily Feiner who is a constituent in Mike Lawler's district Nyak New York i think it's 17 and she went in and she asked a question she asked him a question in a in a town hall at a town hall she decided I didn't feel like I heard the answer to my question so she reass great so good so we are inviting her to come visit us at this coffee clutch should we watch a clip let's watch her clip which many of you have probably seen and see what she actually did in her home district this is really important because a lot of people ask 'What can I do what's my role in this horrible godforsaken world we live in right now what do I do emily 35:05 Feiner is a good example at what point will you actually stand up for the constitution in order to get advanced manufacturing out of China incentivized everyone in this row has been yelling and screaming stop videoing advanced manufacturing trying to happen overseas what we saw during Let her say her particular high ladies and gentlemen please return to your seats please return to your seat emily Feiner it's so nice of you to spend time with Heather and me thank you you it's a pleasure to be here uh now you're in Nyak New York uh something happened last Sunday we we actually saw a clip of what happened last Sunday you I just want to make sure that everybody knows you are not a registered Republican or registered Democrat is that right um I am not and you are in 37:00 Mike Lawler's district you are a constituent uh he's your Republican um member of Congress uh you went to Ashley run through for us what actually happened um I showed up for my congressperson's town hall in Sr's New York last Sunday night and when I got there there was a massive police presence um there were four layers of security we had to show our QR code in order to even drive in that we had uh been we had we had been officially uh registered for the event and then in order to get into the actual building we had to be um IDed to make sure that we were in fact in my 17 constituents and then we had to uh get wanded like we were going to a concert or something um and then after we signed in we were brought to this um you know 38:07 one of those freestanding signs that they have with I think like 16 rules we had to agree to abide by things like no calling out no standing up no booing no making noise i mean it was ridiculous quite frankly given what's going on in our country right now and you had to verbally say that yes I accept these rules and then they didn't let us go find our own seat they escorted us to they wanted to know where we were it was it was quite something and um yeah so we sat down and uh my husband actually was the first person who was called to ask a question and once he was called I thought well I'll never get called and about three people down the line I was called i stood up i asked my question congressman Lawler didn't 39:03 answer it he in fact he was totally nonresponsive he talked about appropriations i had asked where his red line was to stand up to Trump and um I called out for him to ask it repeated i mean to answer it repeatedly he refused and uh went on to another question and proceeded to lie to the audience about the effect of tariffs on prices and everybody at that point was yelling including me and uh this woman who had targeted me from the moment I walked into that room came over and said 'Okay that's your last warning you're out of here.' Wait a minute now Emily private security i just want to make sure we know this woman was part of the staff of the congressman or Yes her name is Aaron Crowley she is a Putinham County legislator and um she is also the uh I think she runs his district office up there okay and uh they had private security come over and try to convince 40:02 me to leave and I said no and then they had the um the New York State troopers come and I refused to leave and then they uh picked me up and carried me out of there and I heard I mean from the clip we can hear people say uh you know first of all let her speak and then shame shame shame uh I mean how well Heather probably has a lot of questions but I just want I wanted to go ahead yeah i just think it's so Thank you for coming and taking the time to talk to us how My main question is how did it feel literally in your body i mean I know you kind of didn't want to go so you just went limp and said 'Fine if you're carrying me out seemed like you're carrying me out i'm not I can't fight this.' But so how did it feel during and afterwards i mean was it just Can you describe it so quick i don't know how I felt i I just I just knew that it was wrong what they were 41:04 doing and that I wasn't just going to get up and walk out of there i mean they were trying to shame me they were shaming me for asking my congressional rep a question and for not you know not accepting his his offiscation and so I knew I wasn't going to leave on my own accord and then I I do think I was pretty shocked that they actually picked me up and then at that point I think when I went limp my my mind was blank i really don't know this you know when you're an adult it's never a good thing if somebody's picking you up you probably been in an accident or this whole thing you know i um I don't know what I was thinking once I got out quite frankly I was I was a little annoyed i got a little salty once I got out you must have been but um did you know that you were being uh taped that there was actually a video going of this entire 42:02 incident i knew that Jennifer was taping um like halfway through it jennifer at some point she she says something and I turn and I look and I see that she's videoing jennifer is your friend jennifer is my friend and she happens to be the chair of the Westchester working families party uh and and so we were sitting together were you surprised when the tape went viral it is very strange viral i just have to say it's a very weird thing um I when when you uh posted the video I think I got the biggest response people just couldn't believe you and George Takai that was that was a big one but yes I was totally shocked that it went viral i I've been shocked at the messages we've received and the inquiries I've received i think what 43:01 I've been noticing going on is that there's a bystander effect that's happening right which we know happens in certain instances in the world but this is such a huge stage we're looking at this is democracy and I think so many people want to feel a sense of agency but are worried about I think they have fear about what can happen to them if they speak out but then I think it's the classic bystander effect where you think oh I someone else I'm sure someone else is going to stand up and do something there's no way that all the Democrats in DC are not going to do something and so I think examples like you Emily remind us that we can't be bystanders and I think that's one thing that I found so powerful about that viral video have other people said that to you have they said thank you or have they said what are the kind of comments i've had these wonderful messages of like you know I can't believe you did what you did but you've made me realize I'm not doing enough or you've made me more motivated to to do more um I had 44:06 one really wonderful message from somebody in Turkey thanking me and saying 'We see you we hear you and we know that that Americans aren't like Donald Trump that we we know there are good people in America.' Which was really gratifying that's fabulous your district uh in Nyak around Nyak uh it's a moderate but Republican district i mean Michael Lawler would not have been elected if it weren't you know sort of Republican very purple very purple yes yes uh and uh I mean the fact that you have got a lot of positive feedback does that include people who are in your community does it include people who um you know might be independents and uh politically just interested in what you did and why you did it 45:02 most of it has been local and uh it's come from all kinds of places certainly Democrats but also independents and a few Republicans um and everybody who I've spoken with has been very appreciative that I took the stand that I did and they've um thanked me sincerely for that did you get an a a kind of apology from Congressman Lawler's office oh no no no congressman Lawler has done two things that I know well three things one is he put out a statement saying that I was a left-wing lunatic and that I was crazy and that I needed help um which is interesting to me as a social worker because you know I think that people who have mental health diagnoses get to ask their congress people questions even if they have a mental health diagnosis but um the other 46:04 thing he did was he went on Sean Hannity's show on Fox and repeated those and then talked about some of my social media posts and then he um encouraged people to text the word crazy to a certain number in order to contribute to his campaign with war chest well I Emily I I think that you have contributed uh not only to the courage of huge numbers of people uh but I would say you have contributed to uh anybody who is going to be opposing Mike Lawler uh in the next election in the midterms uh but uh Heather and I want to thank you so much for your time but also for your uh your courage for standing up for democracy for being a uh really an example of democracy and action a social worker uh yes I want to thank you for that as well 47:04 uh but you are an examplar for all of us thank you thank you so much it's really been wonderful to speak with both of you wasn't she terrific it was so imagine that she of course she kind of went blank i mean she doesn't she said it happened so quickly and I wasn't fully aware of what was happening but interestingly I remember people I mean it was a tactic a civil rights tactic in the civil rights movement you go limp when the police tried to drag you off yeah it was part of the training that's what you training and she did it automatically um and it is this is sort of like a civil rights movement right this is this this is a pro-democracy movement it's a pro-democracy and it's doing the peaceful protesting and I mean the fact that she was asking a secondary question because her first one wasn't answered and that is not allowed yes and she was saying please you know answer the 48:00 question the question everybody else uh really was there the crowd was not as far as I could tell from the clip a Republican necessary or a Democratic crowd i mean they were there because they were very curious right i thought it was also interesting Heather all of the uh difficulties she and other people had to get in they had to agree to all of these conditions yep and QR codes and scanning and Yeah this is this is what's happening at the town halls i mean we've been hearing about it you've been saying about it but to talk to someone who is there who also watches our videos yes i love that yes and um and I'm hearing more and more town halls around the country where people are being dragged off uh Emily Feiner is not the only one right uh and um but and they're tightening yes they're well in fact or being canled mike Mike Johnson the speaker of the house said to his Republicans 'Don't even have town halls don't have town halls because you know why because people are so upset too 49:02 risky too risky someone might ask a question it's democracy someone might hold us accountable we don't want to be in a risky democracy and Heather thank you again that brings us to the end of another Saturday coffee clutch i think it's like our 172nd or something i think it's it's maybe I don't this year even the last 3 months feels like 300 years we've done this uh but thank you you are fabulous uh Michael Lahannes Calderon behind the camera you are great uh Emily Feiner uh out there in the in Nyak New York thank you for joining us today and uh all of you I I hope that Emily Feiner uh fortifies you if you need fortification in terms of you being an activist and a citizen and uh demanding really demanding uh that this Trump administration and every one of your 50:04 representatives and senators in Congress respond to you you they work for you they work for Emily Feiner they work for all of us uh we don't work for them remember that and we'll see you next week

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