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COMMENTARY THE COFFEE KLATCH ... APRIL 19TH 2025 with Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse Has Trump Met His Match PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdVOk-RDCg8&t=2407s Peter Burgess COMMENTARY The weekly Coffee Klutch is quite a lot longer now than a few months back ... a good indicator of the importance of getting control of Trump and his bizarre ideas. It would have been nice if the Republicans would take some responsibility for Trump and his many bizarre ideas. In the first Trump administration there were a number of responsible conservatives ... but not any more in the second Trump administration. It bothers me that Trump is likely to remain in power for his full term ... health permitting ... no matter how unpopular he becomes. In most political systems, if the party in power becomes seriously unpopular, then it is time for a new election. Sadly, this is not the way it works in the USA. Peter Burgess
Has Trump Met His Match \| The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich Robert Reich Premiered Apr 19, 2025 1.22M subscribers ... 295,888 views ... 16K likes The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich The danger of Trump’s deportation spree. The power of solidarity in the fight against tyranny. And has the mad king finally met his match? We discuss all of this (and more) on a new Coffee Klatch. Don't forget, you can also listen to this as a podcast on... SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AfzYNZ... APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... SUBSTACK: https://robertreich.substack.com/podcast How this content was made Auto-dubbed Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich Transcript Intro 0:02 it is the Saturday coffee clutch with Heather Loft House and yours truly Robert Rich heather uh things are happening so fast that's the point that is the point it is it is the point i mean this is Blitz Creek they want to do it so fast that we don't even we're overwhelmed we're all absolutely We can't even concentrate on what's happening so in terms of what we do here what are we going to concentrate on let's concentrate on Trump yes taking on Harvard China and the Supreme Court well that's a lot to unpack that's interesting because Harvard and China and the Supreme Court are all huge huge Harvard China and the Supreme Court institutions and countries and Trump is taking them all on uh and this and they're taking him on yes and this could be his last stand uh because uh you can't just take these you know you can't just Harvard is the biggest institution the most the number one institution and 1:01 by wealth and by influence and power uh in higher education uh and China hello uh and and the Supreme Court um this is you know I I have this mental image of Trump as a mad king surrounded by you know his lack lackeyis and the lackeyis are all saying are rooting them on and saying go uh sir uh president go out go get get China get Harvard get worship the Supreme Court and and they're kind of edging him on they're kind of and he is so filled with his own power and rage Harvard and Trump and his own mad king sickness that he just might do it and overconfidence and overreach yep overconfidence and overreach on each of these well so let's dig into it so Harvard last time we had a coffee yes I'm pretty sure what had happened oh Harvard had said 'We are not 2:00 going to follow what you're asking we are not going to concede.' Yes and this is very very important because Harvard was the first major university colombia had caved had surrendered to Trump uh other universities in Colombia's wake were caving uh they didn't want to lose their federal funding uh and if they had and they're all appealing and it's it's illegal for Trump to use funds that are intended for one purpose by Congress uh to try to get his purposes uh done uh but um Alan Garber the president of Harvard said no uh we are not going and he says it very explicitly very clearly we are not going to do Trump's bidding uh and that gave more backbone to other other universities i mean Colombia uh two days later said 'Well you know we're rethinking it we're going to be uh tougher.' And what was the mad king's 3:02 response and the and the mad king well with the mad king is having tantrums the mad king with regard to Harvard immediately said 'We're going to take away two billion dollars of your funding.' Two billion uh and then he has threatened to use the IRS uh to go after uh Harvard's taxexempt status now remember the ostensible reason that Trump is giving for all of this is anti-semitism at Harvard and some of these other institutions but we know that he's also going after diversity equity and inclusion programs he's also going after uh transgender students uh who are athletes who are uh blown up science and he's that's right and he's going after science generally so he it's after wokeism i mean this is this is The Mad King quote unquote this is the notion the absurd notion that these universities are somehow in the camp of the left uh 4:03 and that is I think going to be Trump's undoing because Harvard University unlike the others has an enormous endowment 54 billion dollars it has very influential and powerful alumni uh Harvard is contributions to Harvard are increasing dramatically in the wake of all of this right that's because people are saying we agree with what you did i do think it was surprising in some ways right and also invigorating i mean to see Harvard take that stance was incredible and absolutely I I think had it not uh the whole university system would have ended up uh you know trying to appease the Mad King and once you try to appease there's no end to it but Harvard by standing up Harvard is setting an example harvard is saying no you don't have to appease the mad king 5:01 but also so I think it's courage and we'll talk about that but I also think they have his number I mean they get that he is not a highly intelligent strategic leader I think they do I think they also understand that uh Trump is so impulsive that he will do whatever the next thing occurs to him or whatever the the the person who uh comes comes to him last is going to say so he's not a strategic thinker uh and they understand he's basically they're dealing with an ego an egoomaniac a kind of uh you know a crazed uh narcissist uh and so what you do with a crazed narcissist is you you set limits right and when he's going to say he's winning even when he's not winning and they're going to keep going China forward right yes and this is the theme with Harvard and China and we'll get to China in a moment and the Supreme Court because he's taking all of them on uh and he when he discovers that he can't 6:04 win he's going to try to save face he'll say he did win uh he'll look for offramps he'll blame somebody else uh and he will claim victory i mean this is his MO right right right right okay so let's talk about China because he has now said we are in negotiation we are in negotiation with China allegedly after putting tariffs of 145% on China i mean that is basically trying to decouple China the Chinese economy from the US economy you have the two biggest economies in the world in terms of trade trying to decouple i mean you're talking about direct investment of global companies that have huge markets in China and assembly operations that they actually feed into their American um operations uh it's it's well we saw we began to see the results of all of this in terms of bond markets and the stock market uh and I think that some of the 7:04 people around Trump got scared including the Treasury SK secretary who went to Trump uh and said 'You you've got to do something.' So Trump again to try to save face he says 'Well this wasn't really about setting tariffs this was about negotiating right it's all about negotiating and um we'll we'll we'll give it a three-month break.' U with China though uh those Chinese tariffs are still there and they retaliated and they retaliated and they are they they Trump Cant Win have them have his measure as well they know what they're doing they do know what they're doing uh and Trump can't win i mean he just like he can't win with Harvard he cannot win with China but if so can we just take it to its logical conclusion even though I don't really want to is that it's a lose lose i mean if he there's for he's not going to win so what's going to happen i mean where are we going to end up the tariffs 8:01 will will divide ours by two and they'll divide theirs by two no I think we where we end up is a lose-lose you're absolutely right but the question is who loses bigger uh and I think the United States loses bigger because American companies are really global companies they don't have any patriotism it's not that you know they're out to make as much money as possible uh Chinese companies are different chinese companies are are basically partly there because they want to improve the living standards of everybody in China and the power of every of of the Chinese uh and so uh we're deal dealing with different systems and in terms of a global economy uh and American companies embedded in a global economy those American companies will find other ways of getting their supplies and getting their components and getting their assemblies done right but it is I mean even people I know you know who have certain jobs that are designers for companies and other things like that they said everything is 9:01 changing i mean we can't get any of our imports we can't get any of our of the products we need to make our Absolutely Heather i mean it's chaos uh and chaos itself is an impediment to these giant economies i mean nobody's going to invest uh you talk about manufacturing investment nobody's going to make any major investments in a in a firm in a plant uh or any anything that is major or big uh because you don't know the future right we talked about this last week and Trump keeps keeps changing his mind okay so the Supreme Court yes number three where do things stand harvard The Supreme Court China Supreme Court this is his third uh the you know showdown showdown war um well it's it's interesting i think that um the Supreme Court really does not want to get to a point where they see that Trump is saying 'I don't care what 10:01 the Supreme Court has said i'm going to do what I want to do.' This is what Vance JD Vance has been egging him on to do um it would be suicide for president because you know the public really does believe that the courts matter uh and it would be tipping America into dictatorship i mean clearly uh but it would also be suicidal for the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court has no power in and of itself obviously uh you know that's what the federalist uh the founders who talked about Supreme Court no power of the purse no power no army um and so it is all power by just simply trust in the Supreme Court uh this is a dangerous showdown and the showdown is going to happen I think right now or it's happening right now as we speak over the decision by the Trump administration uh 11:03 to basically take this uh individual uh Abrego Garcia yeah kilmar of Grand Kilmargo Garcia from Maryland um to abduct him uh with no trial with no evidence with no uh process at all uh and put him into a a prison in El Salvador that a district court judge had said you must not you you are not allowed to do this the district court decision came years ago and in fact they even admitted the immigration service admitted error they said they should not administrative error administrative error they should not do this but u they did and then to just almost almost rub the Supreme Court's face in its own impetence uh you know you have on Monday there's Trump in the oval office uh with the president of El Salvador um Buddha 12:01 what is it boule ble uh and uh They're they're they're just having a lovely time they're having a lovely conversation and Trump is saying 'Well I can't do anything.' And Bula is saying 'I don't I really can't do anything.' Yeah as they high five but it it's very clear that if this stands Facilitate uh none of us is safe because it's just their allegation it's just the Trump regime's allegation that this person uh should be in a prison a brutal brutal prison in El Salvador but so you keep saying it would mean and it could mean and it when it happened i mean when are we so we're there's been a rebuke right this week so a district court said this is not okay but when do we get to the point aren't we inching closer and closer inching so close because the Supreme Court said you must facilitate facilitate is that word the verb facilitate it doesn't mean you can just sit in your chair facilitate means 13:01 you've got to do something and the administration the regime is saying no we don't have to do anything it says facilitate um and uh it was interpreted by the White House council as non nothing you can just do nothing no facilitate is an active verb you have to do something interpreted I think is a generous term i think it was lied and put on its head i mean it was Yeah 90 against the ad what the administration has done not 90 feel free to do anything you like exactly exactly um and but just like Harvard and like China you have this confrontation with the Supreme Court uh and it's getting closer and closer and people around Trump are egging him on and maybe there's a little brain inside Trump that is saying 'I don't want you know if I if I go too far you know maybe I ought to seek an off-ramp maybe as with Harvard 14:01 and China there ought to be a little bit of a uh of of a way in which I can save face uh but we'll see i mean it's getting very close we are just a hair's breath away from an outright dictatorship and ICE is getting more aggressive trump's ICE and going after you know so many individuals and many of those individual including citizens including citizens including citizens this is the most important part of that little white house dance in the Oval Office um between the president of El Salvador and uh and Trump uh where Trump says you know you and he says it off he thinks he's off hot mic off uh the off camera and off mic he says uh you know I I need more room because we're going to go after homegrown next yep the homegrowns well hello you're homegrown i know I'm 15:00 homegrown yep um who's next well the Supreme Court is going to review a case about birthright citizenship which is another thing that I personally did not see coming except that we all kind of did uh yeah now that's in a slightly different category but it is going to be reviewed and the 14th Amendment makes it very clear very clear there's no there's no debate the 14th Amendment says clearly if you're born in the United States you have citizenship right jui that's the term latin yes the soil you were a Latin scholar a scholar is I took two years of it well that's makes you took you took two more years of Latin than I did you didn't take Latin no I didn't i didn't i took French i flunge Loselose confrontations with the gi so um Yeah yeah this is going to be scary so that's one we're also watching this is um but but I what I what I want everybody to to understand all of us is how close we are right now to these 16:06 confrontations that are lose lose confrontations big lose-lose confrontations well what's the logical conclusion okay so here we are we're still in the midst and holding our breath so it feels like to me Trump is defying everything but still things are being appealed so maybe we're not at the quite at the finish line of the marathon well I in terms of the Supreme Court we are very close because the Supreme Court has said facilitate with regard to the the American from Maryland who is in El Salvador without charges uh the birthright citizenship yes it's going to come very very quickly and close there are a lot of other cases that are coming up to the Supreme Court uh now the Trump regime has so far uh basically neglected the district courts and said 'Well we're not bound to them i don't we don't care.' They're acting as if the district 17:00 court rulings don't matter but those district court rulings matter when they get to the Supreme Court uh and that's the showdown that's the funnel showdown but so the US Marshall Service exists right and DOJ is in charge of them mhm but also I mean if so if if Trump is in contempt and the whole regime is in contempt there's two kinds of contempt right help us through this you've just jumped to contempt well if a court uh it could be a district court it Two kinds of contempt could be a court of appeals uh it could conceivably be finally on appeal the Supreme Court finds that there is uh criminal contempt right that is officers of the United States intentionally willfully decided they are not going to obey a Supreme Court ruling right and it has already happened and it was criminal and yes and because it is willful because it is intentional uh then you're 18:02 in the midst of the worst constitutional crisis you can imagine then your issue about the marshalss the US marshalss who are they loyal to are they loyal to their employers at the Justice Department or can the Supreme Court deputize marshals and then have them go where to the Justice Department or someplace else and arrest people we're not going to get there Heather it would be You promise me well I I can't promise anything because it is so crazy u you know I live through and many of you live through the Nixon years uh how does this compare though is your anxiety level today compared to your anxiety level when you were living through well it's both anxiety and anger and outrage um it's worse now it is worse now uh because tricky Dick Nixon uh did some awful stuff and he stretched the Constitution and he you know was one of the worst presidents we've ever had uh but he at least had some sense of what he was doing and some balance and some principles i mean there weren't I was going to say you had to dig pretty deeply uh no but this is much more dangerous okay so that's the logical conclusion so we're going to have to wait and see is what you're telling me uh but I don't think we're going to have to wait long i I think what we really are going to see with regard to Harvard and China and the Supreme Court is these offramps trump using whatever excuse he can to blame them or to blame somebody else and to say I won right i Trump won this contest uh even though he didn't and Van Holland Senator Van Holland of Maryland went down and said 'I just want to proof of life right i just want to see him with my own eyes.' Y you're talking about Garcia yeah um Yes and he did uh and it was staged by for sure El Salvador um but where does 20:07 Where does that leave us that leave us i mean we still have a man who has not been charged with anything and he's in a a prison that is notorious and do you see what the horrible I This is the kind of stuff that floores me so the official White House Twitter account said 'Here I fixed it for you New York Times.' And they took the art the article they had written saying that he was wrongfully I don't think they used the verb kidnapped but taken and they read it and they cross it out oh I I saw Can Michael can we get that because that's put just put it up there so everybody can see this this is this is what adolescence would do this is what a a 13-year-old I mean it's like the mustache on the photo in the yearbook yeah i mean this is this isn't this is not just undignified this is stupid this is uh the kind of uh prank uh malicious prank that a kid would get into uh and 21:00 and but but remember we're dealing with institutions we're dealing with the government of the United States we're dealing with uh you know it's we're not at war with each other or at least I don't think we're at war this is not civil war but how I mean so there are so many adjectives we're using to describe this but sophomoric and childlike it feels like a bunch of you know male with all due respect this is teenagers it does feel like testosterone poisoned young teenage boys uh who are just delighted they are excited they they're in power they can go and do anything they want uh and you know I I would I would include Vance and uh I would include include uh vote you know who's the OM person and Steven Miller definitely and Robert F kennedy Jr i mean think of all of that testosterone in the same place uh and each of them egging each other on and Elon Musk obviously and you've been in a 22:03 lot of white houses yes I have so in my again ignorant naive head I would think that you know some there's a team right and some on the team are a little more risk-seeking and some are more riskaverse and some would be saying maybe don't do that i don't think there is one person saying maybe don't do that and you think it's the exact opposite right i mean it's I think I think that there I think that there is a competition to see who can be uh the most blatant and uh and aggressive uh I think Marco Rubio's in the contest marco Rubio yes uh and I think the the the Who is the most blatant and aggressive difference between the first Trump and second Trump administration the first one uh he was surrounded by people who said no to him and and understood how to manage Trump uh now he has surrounded himself with people who are different vice president on yes and a completely 23:02 different vice president uh and these are not just enablers these are encouraers these are people who want him to take bigger and bigger risks and gain more and more power and of course they're dealing again with a malignant narcissist who wants more and more power at least part of him does uh he doesn't want to be embarrassed he doesn't want to be ashamed he doesn't want seen as losing humiliated no that's right and that's that's the balance in his his head now we haven't even mentioned that he's also going up against the Fed i mean we're at the beginning it feels but so Trump said this week Jerome Powell can't get out of here soon enough or whatever he said well Dr pow Powell has a 14-year term uh and he was put in office by a long term by by Trump yep um 24:02 Fed independence uh the reason that you have long terms for Fed chairs specifically uh and the reason the Fed has independence is so its decisions mostly about interest rates uh have credibility in the market uh if they didn't if if if the Fed didn't have independence if if the Fed chair would come and go and would be another puppet of Trump uh or anyone else or anyone else there would be there would be No there would be no credibility markets would say well interest rates may be going down but I think there's going to be huge inflation uh and we would have no controls at all right so it's independence is paramount and it feels like Jerome Powell is holding on to the independence he has said again and again I'm not leaving i am not leaving i promise I'm not leaving uh but his term of office is over in 2026 so even if Trump does everything he can to embarrass and humiliate Jerome Powell Jerome Powell is going to be there heather uh in the late 20th century when I was in the White House we were instructed not to say anything negative about the the chief of the Fed 25:07 the chair of the Fed uh we was then Alan Greenspan and I wanted to say some things about opinions uh but uh no we couldn't even say it because it was thought to be not only unseemly but also dangerous for the economy the economy so what's going to happen with that we'll see so 2026 reminds me that there are midterms so on a bad bad day there's no crying on the clutch so let's not get into how bad it's getting no it is getting bad it's getting bad but so even on a bad bad day I think the midterms are coming the mid it's 560 whatever three something days till the midterms is couldn't come fast enough but so I Just one chamber keep thinking about the midterms do you think about the midterms all the time i dream about the midterms you dream about the midterms because that I daydream and night dream about just one chamber just one chamber yeah two would be fabulous 26:03 if we got re if if the Democrats got control at least of one chamber uh and had uh you know a good majority a working majority i mean I'm not talking about you know mansion and cinema i'm talking about hello I mean you know a majority you would count on right uh that would make all the difference uh then Trump would be constrained he will still try anything he can uh and he he you know if if Democrats had both chambers he might be impeached right uh and he could be thrown out of office uh but just one chamber would actually make a huge difference one theme you've been hitting on in your many substacks um courage versus cowardice and so it's been and you know that I took a leadership class with you which by the way I'm trying to convince you in your copious free time to do a new version of yes thank you very much I want that to happen it's was such an excellent course 27:03 um but so leadership leadership is about courage it is about courage and it's part and parcel of being a leader right you are going to be tested you said this from day one yeah now again you don't want to be uh irresponsible in terms of your leadership you you've got to bring people along to the extent you possibly can uh but when Alan Garber at Harvard says no right uh to Trump that is an exercise in courageous leadership um and this is the kind of leadership I mean historically the person who I keep on going back to uh is Joseph Welsh who uh oh this was so great before your time yes but I know I mean we all but I remember I was I was a little boy i was 6 years old 1954 um maybe 8 years old and I was sitting with my father watching the Army McCarthy hearings uh and it was the height of the communist witch hunt and 28:06 Joe McCarthy uh was you know just railing and railing and railing and and he would he would he would wreck people's careers even just just accusing them of being communists uh and at one point in those hearings well may maybe let's let's see if we can get the and watch let us not assassinate this lad further senator look you have done enough have you no sense of decency sir at long last have you left no sense of decency i know this hurts you Mr welch i'll say may I say Mr as a point of personal privacy i'd like to finish this senator I think it hurts you too sir i'd like to finish this now so Joseph Welsh is my hero uh and talk about courage and I um I I I I started last week i said well 29:01 the the Joseph Welsh award this week goes to Alan Gorber and Harvard University and I got this loveliest message from Joseph Welsh's granddaughter uh and um she just idolized her grandfather i know you posted it on your Substack i loved it and she sent that photo and she sent a really lovely photo of her grandfather Joseph Welch lifting her up by the ears that's I mean he was doing it playfully um but uh so special and she said 'Keep up what you're doing.' And he would have been so proud and he actually rode she rode that he rode to school on the back Joseph Welch bare bare back on a horse because his brother was the one in the saddle so he was behind the saddle going to the one room schoolhouse where his brother was the teacher and that man Joseph Welsh ended up going to Harvard Law so it was particularly touching that it is Harvard who was standing up this is was 30:00 according to the granddaughter but that was a nice moment of the week really one of the very few two maybe but but contrast Joseph wealth Welsh with uh the appeaser I mean the historically the in recent at least people's memories some people's memories you have Neville Chamberlain in 1939 uh who said to Adolf Hitler yes I'll believe you you I you have reassured me I will believe you I we will not do anything here capitulation 101 that's right Neville Chamberlain was the prime prime minister of Britain at that time uh and that surrender the point is you cannot capitulate or appease a a dictator a tyrant a tyrant i mean there is no appeasing a tyrant because the tyrant takes your appeasement and and becomes even a larger tyrant uh and sucks it up uh that's what when the the law firms these awful terrible law firms I mean they may be good law firms but in terms of their moral principle um you know uh 31:06 they they they say to Trump yes whatever you want um and and and the law firms themselves uh lose their integrity they lose their independence paul Weiss uh is it was the firm that uh the Trump regime first of all issued demands to and it it relended it surrendered well Trump continues to make demands uh it's the same thing as Colombia once you surrender there's no end to the demands that the tyrant will make on you on your own institution right but over 500 law firms did come together right and do and they friend of the court yes and they supported Perkins Koi yeah which stood up and and got the Joseph Welsh award in in my little award system for standing up to Trump uh yes uh there is still 32:01 courage in American law not enough right and the big law firms uh nearly not enough but there is some right but Heather the point is that wherever you look in our system our social structure our civil society uh you find that a a bullying president a malignant narcissist bullying president power hungry is power- hungry surrounded by power- hungry adolescence um is going to look for ways of bullying you finding bullies i mean look at the museums look at the libraries that he's now trying to bully i mean every institution of civil Courage society universities nonprofits is now is now really vulnerable uh and it is incumbent on every one of us and every one of our institutions to to hold the line to say no uh even if it is costly to do it that's what courage is all 33:03 about courage is costly i mean Harvard is going to pay a price every university that says no every law firm that says no uh every institution that says no every museum that says no is going to pay a price but the price is worth it not only in terms of the integrity of that institution but in terms of the integrity of the system because every institution that says no is saving the system so is a movement a foot is a reckoning coming well uh it's remarkable that in fewer than 100 days we have come to the point we have come to that is uh the absolute tip of dictatorship and tyranny uh and I think America is rising up i mean the demonstrations are getting larger and larger uh Bernie Sanders and AOC when they went to Los Angeles just last last weekend 36,000 people 36,000 more than 34:04 he's ever seen more well and and in Denver before it had been 34,000 i mean these are these are mammoth uh rallies right uh and it just shows the extent to which people are afraid but also angry and outraged um and I think that uh we're going to see more of this well there are um protests and actions happening today because it's the anniversary right of the Lexington and Con conquered 250th it's the semiquincentennial semi quincentennial i say semi quincentennial you can say semiquentennial to say quarter millennial that's a it's a synonym but it's easier to say yeah but I you know but that's but look at 250 years ago at Lexington and conquered think of the think of the courage the revolutionary war began think of the courage the shock how heard round the world it was because of a tyrant a mad king i mean literally 35:05 a mad king uh was sending his troops uh to round up Americans uh who were trying to maintain the rule of law and Paul Rivere were you were you friends with I dated his his not his wife his his sister you dated his sister no his sister sally sally River i'm not going to tell you about that because it was just You revered her yeah I did you really did no but so he was a patriot i mean the definition right road at night then these battles occur then we have America Independence well then we have you know can we hearken back to this please well then a year later after the Lexington and Conquered we have the Declaration of Independence uh and I mean think of the courage that it took uh not only Lexington and conquered but also the 36:01 courage of these people who really felt some loyalty to Britain they felt you know that that was their responsibility but at the same time they knew that they had to make the break and if they didn't make the break uh there would be no freedom everybody everybody would be subjected to this mad king and the risks were but the risks were huge they would lose their lives they they didn't have lawyers on speed dial they didn't no I don't think they did no and they didn't know that they could post on Blue Sky and have everyone it was give them likes slightly more primitive and it would took them a long time to get from Boston to um wherever they were going yeah National Civic Uprising exactly you know Philadelphia but so people are inspired by this and there is a movement i mean there are people are showing up today great i I think it's important uh it's important to have a kind of a national civil or civic u uprising i 37:02 mean uh this is what we have to have heather even David Brooks called for it even David Brooks now David Brooks is not somebody he's a columnist in the New York Times he's not somebody that I've ever quoted before but I did quote him on this a national civic uprising uh because the Republicans in Congress are totally um they are they are intimidated lisa Marowski I saw that I I was moved and and angered by by her admission u and she said 'Yes you wouldn't believe the intimidation i mean uh the degree to which people are afraid to speak up to speak up she was talking I assume she was talking about Republicans and she was talking about the Senate um these are our representatives these are the people who we rely on uh to speak for the people and if they are intimidated 38:00 and they are afraid to speak up we are certainly all of us vulnerable to this mad king and you went on two couple days ago you went to UC Berkeley and we can put the link um in the description but you had a powerful speech where you said Harvard has says has said no and Berkeley should say no and universities have to come together and we have to be defiant in the face of tyranny yeah and the and the problem for universities the problem for law firms the problem for all these institutions to coming together is a collective action problem that is it's it's like the prisoners dilemma it's easier for them as individual institutions to feel like uh if they do a costbenefit analysis the costs are going to be overwhelming uh and and they shouldn't actually they shouldn't be courageous but if they think if they are together if they think in terms of solidarity and I'm not even talking just the universities but all of these institutions of all of these 39:03 people community members all of all of us common good if we understand that solidarity generates courage >br> Loneliness Epidemic uh we have to come together I think it's hard I mean so we have a loneliness epidemic we know that but It feels so atomized i mean even though I feel like I have a serious sense of community hello and a community around me but it's still people feel it feels so individualistic still it's hard it's and that's what you have mentioned in that David Brooks article basically it's got to be a group it's got to be the collective well I think that one of the reasons that people are attracted to a strong man and this goes for Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin and and and Donald Trump is that atomized issue that they they are afraid they are feel vulnerable as individuals um they society doesn't offer them enough protection or enough 40:05 uh you know enough protection from the bullies of society the economic bullies in America for example uh and I think that um it's only through coming together literally figuratively um that we can gain the courage we need to take on the bullies right uh and this is fundamentally important if if there's a silver lining and I know I've said this before Heather and your eyes very dull the silver not even shining a little bit but this is so important um what we must learn from this horrible Institutions Matter chapter of American history uh is that our institutions matter uh you know to to treat them as they have been treated for years uh the money flowing into politics as if as if money is free speech as if corporations are people of 41:03 which the Supreme Court decided these are so fundamentally antithetical to the institutional integrity we need uh to avoid a Trump in the future uh that I hope we learn I hope we learn our lesson and I hope that we continue to explain what's happening there is a purpose behind it step one of divide and conquer is divide Absolutely that's what's happening well I this is this is this is out of the fascist playbook i mean you want people to be angry at each other uh you want uh you know the the Democrats and Republicans to be shouting at each other you want people to distrust each other because then they don't and countries and Yes countries because they they suspect each other as being the reason for all of their problems and they don't look upward and see where all the money and power have actually gone to the oligarchy uh to a handful a 42:04 relatively handful of people who were smirking who were sitting back and saying oh this is great this is great just more and more anger and more and more discord is exactly what we need well it's just the opposite okay well I'm wearing black cuz I'm in mourning for Well I something democracy democracy let's let's let's let's end on a let's end on a positive democracy note uh but look the the forces of progress uh the forces of the future are mobilizing and we are mobilizing you are mobilizing and uh Heather thank you once Thank You again thank you for all of your mobilization thank you your activism your energy uh and thank you all again uh for everything you are doing you are going to be and already are being called upon to take a more active role in our 43:04 society than perhaps you have ever been called upon and it is critically important you do so thank you for doing so we will see you in a week in a in a week next week mr mccarthy I will not discuss this further with you you have sat within 6 ft of me and could ask could have asked me about Fred Fiser you have seen fit to bring it out and if there is a God in heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good i will not discuss it further i will not ask Mr call any more witnesses you Mr chairman may have your will call the next witness [Applause]

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