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COMMENTARY THE COFFEE KLATCH ... APRIL 12TH 2025 with Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse Is Trump F**ing the Economy? PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUIFIG1TnRo Peter Burgess COMMENTARY It is being interesting to watch the change in tone of the Reich / Lofthouse Coffee Klatch over the weeks as the Trump administration goes after different parts of the government establishment. While the Reich / Lofthouse conversation seems to 'get it' that Trump is taking the USA down a huge 'rabbit hole', I get the sinking feeling that 99% or more of Americans have their heads ... and brains, to the extent they have them ... deeply buried in the sand. I live in a 'nice' community in the Poconos of Pennsylvania ... about a 2 hour drive from Manhattan. The community started about 40 years ago as a 'weekend' place, but has morphed into a more permanent community over time with a growing number of retirees. The politics of the area are mainly well to the right of center ... and not at all well informed ... which I am increasingly aware is the norm for most of the American electorate most everywhere! I migrated from the UK to North America in my 20s in the 1960s. In the process it became possible for me to earn more in less than three months than I could in the UK in a year. I was an economic migrant! North America was short of people and the natural resources were huge ... so more people was good for the economy and for everyone! But in the 1960s, Europe ... and especially Britain ... was struggling economically after the damage inflicted by WWII. Not so for the USA, which had no war damage but rather had built out its industrial power base massively during the war. To add insult to injury, much of the war material sent to Britain was being sold 'on credit' ... the 'lend-lease' program which deferred payment for the material into the future ... but still required payment! It took many years for Britian to pay down the 'lend lease debt. I was born in 1940, and I think I was in my 20s before this war debt to the USA was finally paid off. I went through my whole childhood with 'ratioing' and there was significant food shortages well into my teenage years! When I started to work in the British industrial sector in the early 1960s, much of the machinery was well past a normal life. There were shortages of everything. Some of the heavy machinery we were using dated back around 50 years to pre-WWI. British engineers still had the brains ... but the British economy had been run into the ground in order to win WWII. Sorry ... whenever I think about my own migration to North America, I get emotional ... and somewhat angry at the way most modern American understand their history! Peter Burgess*
Is Trump Fing the Economy? \| The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich* Robert Reich Premiered Apr 12, 2025 1.22M subscribers ... 282,292 views ... 13K likes The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich The Trump tariff roller-coaster goes off the rails. The mad king makes a mockery of the rule of law. The Reverse Robin Hood budget bill begins. Heather and I break down this week's news — and take a sneak peek at my new memoir — on today's 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 The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich Transcript 0:02 and it is the Saturday coffee clutch with Heather Loft House and yours truly Robert Rush heather it is very nice to see you in person you in person pinch me well I'm not going to pinch you that is That would hurt it's very rude it's very rude to pinch but anyway so what's u what are we going to talk talk about today let's talk about Trump's tariff chaos you know wait there's more the trade war with China and then the reverse Robin Hood switcheroo that's happening right under our very noses you know there's a meltdown going on uh at first it was all Elon Musk and it was a meltdown of the federal government now it's a meltdown of the economy not just the United States economy but to some extent the world economy and Donald Trump is right in the middle it's hard to remember that 10 11 weeks ago uh actually the economy was pretty good everything was pretty good okay tariffs what has happened walk us through or all 1:03 of it or where we are now you pick uh well Donald Trump decided as we all know that he had to do something different uh that even though he kept on saying over and over again that tariffs were beautiful and necessary and they were they would generate huge amounts of money for the American economy and trust it was just it was great um he finally met his match and the match was not just the stock market it was also the bond market yes tell us more well well I mean it's it's actually it is interesting it's very important um you know the bond market we don't talk about very much but the bond market we're talking about treasury bonds they are the safe harbor if you want to put your money into the safest place it is you don't put it under the mattress you don't put it into gold you put it into treasury bonds and that's sort of 2:04 everybody knows that's where safe i mean it's in in the entire world Heather it's not just the Americans you put it into tea bills but what happened was Ta bills started to show that investors in tea bills those people who were actually buying tea bills wanted even more interest to respond to a risk that they were feeling uh a risk that maybe they wouldn't be paid back maybe the United States was going down the tubes maybe the entire global economy was going down the tubes maybe the dollar uh was not really reliable that is a fundamental uncertainty this is deep they were right this is deep and we're talking about not just a couple of investors we're talking about again global investors in T bills in the Treasury bills uh and if they don't have confidence then the whole foundation of the economy the world 3:02 economy starts crumbling uh and why did they not have confidence they didn't have confidence because they were worried about these extraordinary tariffs on everybody uh that made no sense to anyone uh and Trump really did have to do a major U-turn he said 'Okay I'm going to hold off for the next 90 days we're not going to put the tariffs into into effect and I'm going to consider this all about negotiation these are not I'm going to change my story.' My story was we're going to have these tariffs come heller high water but my story now is they are just provisional and everybody can negotiate with me the king right okay i have so many questions so first of all some people said he did a reverse but it's not really a reverse look at China we are still in a huge trade war with them so we said to them look at our tariffs nanny nanny boooo 145% did you say nanny nanny boo i 4:00 mean Trump basically said nanny nanny boooo but not in those words but you don't you don't do that with China i mean he we are now in a trade war we put up our tariffs against Chinese goods and they put up their tariffs against American goods and it's now basically this the beginning of the decoupling of the two of the biggest economies in the world we're the number one economy china in terms of trade is the number two or three economy uh and you try to decouple those two economies and you are really in no man's land i mean we've never been here before uh and so you are absolutely right trump retreated on all the rest of his tariffs it's still 10% exactly still still 10% that's not nothing that is still an impediment big impediment uh but now we also are trying to decouple from China which I think is if I were the CEO of a major company I would not 5:04 know what to do i mean where do I invest how do I invest do I build more uh capacity in the United States do I build more capacity in Mexico uh do I hire more people do I fire people if I'm a CEO I would not know it's just wild uncertainty yeah and watching this volatility and a number of CEOs have said this I mean there was a quote from Metife and other people who are saying we can't be at the whim of one individual person they couldn't didn't put in there madman but this is a problem for business and planning and strategy but can you tell me more about the bond market so how why does that matter to the everyday person how will they see the effects of the bond market and the insecurity where will it hit them well it will hit them because Remember long-term bond prices the interest rates are going up so in terms of mortgages in terms of car loans in terms of any loans it's going to affect 6:02 all of the loans it's going to make all lending more expensive but underlying all of this this uncertainty and I want to emphasize this uncertainty is the enemy of investment uncertainty means that an economy that is cloaked in uncertainty really starts grinding to a halt so you have the average American family is going to be paying $4,700 a year more because of the tariffs that are now already there that's the latest estimate uh but beyond that you you so you have inflation but at the same time you have a slowdown because CEOs don't know what to do investors don't know what to do and they are not going to do it because if you don't know what to do you're not going to do it and that means that the economy slows down inflation and recession starting in both uh and that is called stagflation we haven't 7:00 seen that we don't want We haven't seen that since the 1970s i and I don't mean to be flip about this this is a serious it's harming huge amounts numbers of people but the thing is that this is all brought on by Donald Trump donald Trump and his regime uh you know he's um he his economic adviserss are at odds they don't know they they are yelling at each other they're insulting each other uh they are trying to come up with ways of persuading the mad king to do what they want to do and they are all uh they are all in the midst of this chaos and it is chaos and we not only are we evil and all of that seen as that but we are fools I mean if you pull out the plug from a bathtub and then you're surprised when the water's going down I don't understand how what did he think so that's very good that can I use the analogy for your subsection Yeah but here we have here I'm going to do the ter I'm not going to do that look at me be cool don't be cool people are getting 8:03 nervous so people called him up and he started watching the bond market i mean how did it actually how do you think the shift got into his brain i think that the secretary of the treasury Scott Besson he went to Trump and he said uh and this was planned i mean a lot of people planned this that's my next question um and he said 'Look uh uh Mr president sir uh and you have to be very obsequious you've got to be very very uh uh careful uh Mr president sir uh if you continue on with these tariffs right now uh we could see a major global meltdown with the United States pulled down dramatically uh maybe Mr president sir the maybe what you want to do is postpone a little bit because then you can have the opportunity to negotiate with all of these countries and you can get some great deals sir Mr president uh and and you can still stick to your 9:02 tariffs but this is a matter of of just of just uh negotiating you are the best negotiator in the world Mr president sir uh this is the art of the deal you know this better than anybody Mr president sir but that's kind of an openf face sandwich i bet he started with the compliments and the full compliment i thought this has been an incredible You are You've That's right you have to start this is incredible but also could be even better if you You are wonderful you are just fabulous Mr president sir I saw that on your Substack when you were doing a you know a script uh it is uh it is sad and but it's also frightening and I want to come back to this theme Heather which is that 10 and a half weeks ago uh the United States economy was actually in pretty good shape our foreign policy was in pretty good shape uh domestic policy was in fairly good shape i mean there are obviously room for improvement uh and a lot of consumers and a lot of voters particularly voters were a little bit worried about uh about inflation and 10:04 high prices uh Donald Trump had convinced them before the election that he would bring prices down that he would fix the economy that he was the businessman and he understood he was a successful businessman uh that Joe Biden and Kla Harris didn't understand what they were doing look where we are now but why aren't more people shouting voters the press why aren't more people saying 'You are screwing us over this is not what you promised.' So many are let's give them a little more time i mean is that just because they're supplicants or is that because they don't want egg on their face which is expensive these days i think the people who the press pays attention to um are CEOs uh or in slightly different context the heads of universities or others but everybody right now is scared they don't want 11:00 Donald Trump to be angry with them uh so there is kind of this chilling effect uh you're not going to hear people except the Democrats yes but the Democrats don't have any power right now uh a week ago on April 5th you had huge numbers you had millions of people demonstrating against the Trump administration but the demonstrations didn't get much coverage because the press uh and a lot of people on the inside in Washington say it doesn't matter we don't have an election coming up until 2026 that's the problem the meltdown is occurring now uh the craziness the incompetence i mean look at just last week was the signal gate mhm i mean we we we think that that was months ago it was just last week signal gate now this week is is kind of tariff gate uh and China gate uh these are uh are real scandals in terms of running America uh and it's clear that Trump doesn't know 12:05 what he is doing so you have said and other people have said the stock market is not the economy when it is doing incredibly well and everyone says look at the economy it's so great everything's going and that's not the economy and we have to think about things like the minimum wage and other things that actually affect the average person but now that's being turned against us and they're saying well the stock market's not the economy the economyy's doing just fine I mean it's interesting the same frameworks well here's the way the the truth yeah the stock market is not the economy um you know most uh about about 94% of the stock market is owned by the richest 10% of Americans uh so obviously it's not the economy but it starts affecting the economy because the richest 10% of Americans their purchases account for about half of all the spending on purchases in the American economy uh and 13:03 if they feel like they are poorer because their stock portfolios have dropped they are not going to make the kinds of purchases they were making before they're going to pull in a little bit and even a little bit means we're heading toward recession it means fewer jobs it means less industrial capacity it means a kind of uh kind not a depression but a slowdown what does it mean for borrowing and the deficit too right yes uh because the deficit is still hanging like a sort of domicles over the heads of uh everybody who has any responsibility in the economy at all uh the the Trump administration wants to pass a big tax cut for just like the 2018 tax cut that went into effect in 2018 mainly the rich mainly big 14:00 corporations uh they they are the main beneficiaries uh but to do that without busting the budget you've got to create some cuts and Elon Musk's cuts uh in the federal workforce are really tiny i mean they they paper cuts they're they're little they're little tiny paper cuts they're not I mean yes a lot of people are hurt very badly and a lot of people are scared and if you're and if you're trying to get social security you you know nobody's answering the phones and nobody where do you get $1.5 trillion well that's the interesting thing because the House passed a budget which it had to do in order to fasttrack called reconciliation fasttrack this tax cut through the Senate but the House said we are going to cut $1.5 trillion dollar there's no way of doing that without affecting or cutting in some way Medicaid and or 15:00 Medicare and or Social Security so suddenly and I think over the next month or two people are going to be aware of this uh a lot of people are going to who average working Americans i'm not talking about the top 10% i'm talking about people who just are trying to get by 70% of Americans are are living paycheck to paycheck Heather and if suddenly your Medicaid or your social security or your Medicare or your parents' Medicare or their Social Security is not available and you're starting to pay higher and higher uh rates for for loans and for mortgages and everything is starting to cost more because of tariffs even the 10% tariffs i mean you are getting squeezed you as an individual American are getting squeezed tighter and tighter and and the money's being redistributed upward well it is if that tax cut goes through and 16:01 that's what the Republicans are absolutely absolutely dedicated to doing because most of the billionaire money that they got during the election the 2024 election was premised on the promise of a big tax cut well this is reverse Robin Hood this is if you look at the large picture economically this is taking from average working people and the poor and sending it in the form of big tax cut to people at the very top but how can they touch the third rail you know that we don't touch which is Medicaid and also under and social security and social security under the guise of eliminating fraud right i mean we hear this constantly when you see the real numbers of fraud are so tiny and it is a guy's I mean they this is not what's happening this is what Elon Musk's role was basically he was not in the news much this past week refreshing well we'll get back to that uh but Elon 17:00 Musk's role over the past month and a half two months has been to uh create the impression that some of these big programs are filled with fraud uh so that the public is not as outraged when the Republicans start and he is a genius and the only one who can find it and he is transparent with it and all of that is a ruse well it's all a ruse and it's it's a big a ruse is a nice way of putting it it's a giant lie uh but the Republicans will Republicans will use this lie and they will continue to use the lie this is this was understood in the 1930s uh the big lie uh if you just say the same thing over and over it's like the Trump in the 2020 election if you say the same thing over and over people will eventually start to believe it uh and the Democrats still don't have their act together they can't decide exactly what their their critique is going to be uh and as a result a comeback plan and that's right and as a result you have uh just these big lies out there uh the big lie that the 18:05 tariffs are great the big lie that um you can make a a giant tax cut uh that's going to help everybody the big lie that it's um that you can you can create space in the budget uh by just making these these cuts you can do a $ 1.5 trillion without affecting Medicaid and Social Security and Medicare i mean these are all lies lies but aren't people I mean people are not going to be happy about this i'm ready for a few Republicans to say 'My constituents really do actually need their Medicaid.' And it's because some of them do have jobs actually and some of them are disabled and they need their Medicaid well interestingly we are now starting this weekend uh in a recess and Republicans are going home oh they need a break and they and they're going home to town halls i mean they have been instructed not to have town halls because the town halls have become so 19:04 antagonistic people showing up and saying why are you letting Musk do this why are you creating this havoc in the economy uh but some of them are doing it anyway and if they're not doing it Democrats uh from other districts in the same states are coming in and and substituting for the Republicans in the Republican town halls uh so we're going to see a lot of a lot of push back but remember uh nothing fundamentally will change or can change until you get a change in the control of Congress and you're not going to get that until the 2026 elections in fact until January of 2027 this is why Trump is moving as fast as he can this is why there's such absolute craziness going on in the White House i mean he's also crazy he's a mad king but they want to just do as much as they can and get it over with as fast as 20:01 they can so I want to talk more about the mad king and how this is playing out and what we can do but before that you've used the term and other people do the financialization of America we haven't seen the things that are happening now in this particular format of course one individual person making all these choices but in how long these trends we're watching and the financialization of America tell us more about that what that means well essentially if you look at the American economy 50 years ago uh a much bigger part of the economy was making stuff and providing services uh not financial services real services now products now it is uh a big part of the economy is is finance wall street And you look at the news and the news is filled with finance i mean Wall Street started calling the shots became the biggest player and the most powerful player in the US economy uh about 30 years ago uh and they kept on growing um Wall Street was deregulated uh by 21:06 Republicans and Democrats and then we had remember in 2008 the financial crisis uh Wall Street was bailed out the biggest banks were bailed out homeowners were not bailed out uh the CEOs were basically rewarded for their gambling addiction uh and Americans remember this there's still a great deal of anger toward the financial community and toward the big banks and toward Wall Street uh and indeed the movements that we saw coming out of that the Tea Party movement uh and the Occupy movement right out of the 2008 uh financial crisis uh basically were anti-establishment movements and out of the anti-establishment movements who came Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders they were the heroes of the anti-establishment movement 22:01 and here we are today and here we are today I do make you repeat yourself but it's so helpful and I think so many people need to be reminded of the actual story and the arc if you follow it what if A then B then C right well the the the irony is that we find ourselves now with a what could be a financial meltdown uh and Donald Trump was not the tribune of the average person he was not the anti-establishment candidate he was the establishment candidate he conjured up this big tax cut for the very wealthy and he's going to do it again uh he made the Republican party into a Republican party that was of the billionaire class not just the millionaire class the billionaire class now the Democrats are not that much better because they turned their back on the working class of America but right now both parties I think uh and and obviously the Republicans are are much more at fault uh have have created the chaos we're now 23:00 in and I mean the Republicans in Congress uh show me a Republican in Congress who has integrity enough to stand up to Trump there are very few i'll show you uh yeah there are very few there are few in the Senate who are actually trying to get tariff authority back uh to Congress that's where it is a few more with more time and more hurt will start to Yes I do i I I think that the public pain once once once it's clear that people are paying $4,700 more this the typical family this year because of the tariffs i think that there will be pressure on the Republicans in the Senate to take tariff authority back from and it's going to in so many different ways i was watching about Christmas trees on CNN in April and how much of Christmas product comes from China and how that will hurt people christmas trees from China the decorations of the trees and then all of the and from 24:05 Canada i mean think of the the trees and all of the I mean the cost of building a house right now or building any Well that's what we're going to have so many stories of how it's hitting people and that's where the press comes in by the way AP reinstated you mentioned that in Substack yes and and the supply the supply problems uh the supply what we call the supply chains are now broken in so many ways uh we thought they were broken after COVID we thought okay we'll put them together it was every every the corporations in the United States global corporations were furiously trying to put these supply chains back together but now that we have a decoupling of the United States from the Chinese economy you know 100 we have a tariff now 145% on China their tariff on us is what 125% i mean you're basically saying no more trade well that's nice to say but what 25:03 happens to all of the things that we were relying on China for our assembly or for components or for pieces of this and that we also have big big tariffs on Vietnam on every place else uh even the 10% tariff intrudes on all of this uh and like you say logistics I mean this is you don't change overnight these huge systems you can't and if you are scared because you don't know the future because you think that there's somebody running the economy who doesn't really understand anything and changes his mind uh every 3 minutes you as a an an investor or a CEO you are not going to make a major commitment so he's a mad king but also we can't underestimate how unpopular he is i mean it is wickedly dumb which wickedly dumb wickedly dumb 26:03 he has been doing and there is consumer sentiment is low low consumer sentiment actually consumer sentiment is right out now at the lowest in the history of the polls that measure consumer sentiment starting in 1952 i mean when you were a we taught I remember I was I was six years old and I was they asked me about my consumer sentiment I said well I'm feeling pretty good you know as a consumer uh but I only consumed you know breakfast cereal I mean wasn't much and a toy probably a toy two toys American made probably and there were they were Americanmade um but I I don't want to alarm you and I certainly certainly don't want to alarm you u but we are in deep shite it's so bad and all these supplicants you keep using this word supplicants in your substack but to watch these people graveling i mean this is part of his mo right so there are bigger pictures of 27:04 how can he get his tax cuts pushed through and how can he get richer and keep his buddies richer and all of that has to do with him maintaining his power but watching these supplicants I mean it doesn't feel American it feels like I'm watching a TV show about a past monarchy in a different world it does feel that way and and Trump right now he is entertaining supplicants uh people who are going coming bowing and scraping uh not only in his staff but uh they're coming from all over the world they're coming from from Thailand and Vietnam and from Europe and Hungary and Hungary and they're saying 'Please Mr president please don't put this huge tariff on us uh what what would you like us to do?' and university presidents are doing the same thing please Mr president whatever you want us to do and Wall Street is saying and also the legal firms please Mr president whatever you want just tell us what you want we have never had 28:00 before a kind of a mad king president who entertains a court and has a court in which so many supplicants are coming and bowing and scraping and asking whatever whatever you want Mr president sir uh this is disgusting it's disgusting and we have to start calling him out now we cannot stop it feels like people on purpose are worried i mean this is what he's trying to do right chill everyone and do forced forced obeying what's the phrase i just forgot it obeying in advance obeying in advance i mean so what do we do what how do we counter this the only way of countering it is to stop just say to these countries you've got to get together the European Union and Canada and Mexico and Japan you get together you create your own free trade zone don't depend on uh Trump don't depend on the United States uh make you create a free trade trade zone uh you university presidents get 29:06 together uh and and don't allow uh Donald Trump to to basically pick you apart and and use uh the American Association of University Presidents and the and all of the uh free speech uh kind of u uh lawsuits that you possibly can uh if your if your law firms uh get together I mean there is some progress in law firms um get together uh and and and sue uh the president of the United States and sue this administration for violating uh the most fundamental rights of universities uh and law firms in terms of their free speech um the the most important thing is not to give in the most important thing is for people to have courage and backbone right now so what can individual people do you were I mean last Saturday hands off so 30:00 many people showed up we haven't we haven't met since then yeah no we haven't clutched since then we haven't time is time is warped well that's that's another thing that a mad king can do is play with your brain um I I think that uh individuals uh are are are not powerless on their own when they come together in a demonstration like last week um yes that's really important uh when they say to their own institutions um universities or law firms or places of business uh you must not give into this uh extortion uh that can be powerful uh if uh young associates in a law firm say no we are going to leave we are actually going to resign on mass if you if you if you give in to this mad king and what about the press and journalists uh well journalists also need to stop grling uh 31:01 the associated press for example uh to take one good example the associated press did not grvel it sued uh the administration because the the administration had this it would not allow the Associated Press in to news conferences why because the Associated Press refused for a while to use uh to call the Gulf of Mexico uh the Gulf of America and I mean it's it's so petty it's so petty all of it is so petty uh but it is a way these are ways of fighting back and uh and kudos to universities and and media and others who are fighting back and and shame uh on Elon Musk and and and and the uh the CEOs of America who are basically grling and giving him whatever he wants he's putting the bully into bully pulpit i mean I feel like he is such we've said this but the bully and chief we other 32:04 people too it's what do you know bully pulpit bully pulpit comes from Teddy Roosevelt who was I mean he he thought about the bully pulpit as the positive as positive this was being president you had a a pulpit and and the adjective bully in those days was bully positive great terms have changed I mean and that was how long ago um in terms of a couple things we haven't covered um the Supreme Court some good newsish that came out of the Supreme Court was that Trump's administration has to bring back the Marilyn man who was deported or should we say kidnapped might be a better term well there what's the significance of that well it's it's important because the administration had admitted error with regard to its deportation of this 33:02 particular uh person uh and if the administration admits that he was erroneously sent to a terrible uh to kind of torture prison in El Salvador doesn't the administration have some responsibility to get him back there's a larger issue here too um Heather and that is and it's going to be has to be decided by the Supreme Court uh soon and that is does a president have the right to decide to arrest and deport somebody anybody to another country and a terrible prison or even a prison in another country uh I mean without any due process without any uh without any trial without I mean what's to say who is to say that some of these people who have already been deported to El Salvador uh are not critics of the administration maybe they're American citizens we don't know but where is the judiciary I mean isn't this judiciary 34:03 there should be there should be uh some sort of due process and we we talk about due process we mean a trial or the opport opportunity for a neutral judge to determine that the facts that the administration is using are correct otherwise uh the administration can can can point at anybody and say 'No they're going they are dangerous or they are dangerous or we don't like them we're sending them to a prison in El Salvador.' I know it speaking of disappearing so Musk felt a little like he was waning this past week i didn't see him as much i didn't I mean let's be clear he's still doing evil through Doge i think the FDI was his was his target this week uh people are most angry uh about social security not surprisingly uh the lines but you know he was he he caused the Social Security Administration uh to fire uh a large portion of the people who were uh 35:04 available to provide services to people who needed services you know telephone or lining up uh or just just changing their social security numbers or or or whatever um and when you when you have people who cannot get through to social security via phone via phone or any other way because a lot of people lined up and they could at the local social security office and they couldn't get through u you are hitting not just the third rail of American politics you are really electrifying the entire electorate um and this is I think the end of Elon Musk i know I've said that i've said it before but I think that I like hearing it in person well but when when you have Republicans going back to their districts as they are now and you have so many people saying to them you know I 36:04 can't even get through to Social Security anymore um you've got to change this right and they're older and they're far away from the office and they have to get there they're older and they are very politically active that's one thing about older people uh I can I have standing to say this politically active um these Republicans who are now hearing this uh I think this is going to be the end of Elon Musk uh plus he got into this shouting match or figurative shouting match with uh the trade Peter Navaro around the tariffs uh and you don't do that publicly if you're in an administration you do it quietly you don't do it decorum i'm It's not something we're really Yes I know but it's even in the Trump administration you don't do that publicly it's all Bob it's so cruel to watch at all so we have Social Security being attacked we have 37:00 the economy we have our health care system right that's being it's Medicaid and it's watching RFK Jr come in and talk about all he's talking about and building for being able to pull vaccines is what it feels like he's doing heather the the the issue of cruelty uh is a major theme and it's not just domestically uh look what Trump is doing with not Netanyahu uh allowing uh after the ceasefire is over uh basically a a return to the bloodbath uh in Gaza and not even allowing uh aid to come into Gaza uh look what's happening in Ukraine uh I mean just basically taking away American support for Ukraine uh and saying in effect to Vladimir Putin do whatever you want uh look what's happening in Yemen around the world uh the United States is pulling our aid out 38:02 uh we used to be you know we used to have US aid that was a very it was humanitarian it was in our interest to stop the spread of glo global uh health problems disease I know and help with HIV AIDS treatment and help provide contraception to those who need it your point about cruelty cruelty is a major major theme and historians when they write about the Trump administration the word cruelty will be one of the major words they use it's also bullying 101 isn't it to try and break down people emotionally psychologically physically i mean there's a cruelty that is I I think you're on to a very important theme this is anybody who has had a parent who is a bullying or abusive parent knows instinctively uh that cruelty bullying and also the lack of uh the ability to 39:06 understand why they're doing something uh their irrationality the kind of um coming out of left field suddenly illogical right these are all aspects of uh abuse uh and I don't I'm not a psychologist i can't say that Donald Trump was abused as a kid although there is evidence that he was um but a lot of the people around him are also uh abusive uh they are they have histories of being abusive they have histories of of cruelty toward other people and toward themselves when they were kids so I'm going to bring up the fact that you have a new book coming out i know here we go but you do you talk about bullying so honestly in it and your experience with bullying but more not more importantly but I think some of the themes you cover in this book are have been so important for inequality media civic action they are themes that we 40:01 have tried to follow too they're looking at the corruption of money and politics right and we can look at this inequality breeds corruption which breeds cynicism which breeds demagogues and we follow this train and it's so interesting i got a sneak peek at the book thank you um to watch how you have watched it happen right so it's called coming up short a memoir of my America and you talk through your experience as a labor secretary as a person in the world as a baby boomer right and you talk about look at what I have seen happen look at what the larger trends and the larger arc has been and why I think we've got to where we are i I think that Donald Trump is not the fundamental cause of where we are uh he is the consequence of 50 years in which the nation has not done what it should do or should have done uh and maybe I hope I mean I'm I'm looking at the next generation and saying my students they are the ones 41:06 that are going to have to repair what needs to be repaired because uh it's 41:12 going to take a generation heather uh we've had 50 years of widening inequality 50 years of greater and greater corruption in terms of money corrupting our democracy and our political system big money from the rich and from corporations 50 years in which a lot of things that should have been done uh in terms of oh even global warming climate change should have been instituted uh you know the we let's put let me put it this way uh my generation was the beneficiary of the greatest so-called generation my father uh and my mother and all the others who made uh extraordinary sacrifices uh in the Second World War uh to bequeath to us a nation that had generated the 42:05 largest middle class in history uh and peace and prosperity and it wasn't perfect i mean you know the plight of of black people and women and and equal opportunity still became a focus of our attention um and I was you know I demonstrated in terms of uh the civil rights movement and I demonstrated uh against the Vietnam War but we at least were trying to create a a better world and I think um the problem is that we never got near where we should have got uh and so the the the working class was ignored uh inequality widened uh the the problems of corruption and a a country that was not 43:05 the beacon that it should have been of democracy uh became apparent uh am I making you want to read this well so well I already did so it's too late now but the la I mean but your last not to do a spoiler alert but you talk so much about your students and your faith and hope for the next generation so that and what you've tried to bring them in the classroom and I mean you have a range of students but I think of the students in your classroom over 40,000 of them um and what not one classroom over a number of class that's a big classroom that's like Madison Square Garden is your classroom um but I do think that you've encouraged students to ask the important questions to protect dissenting voices to look at the big picture and so the fact that you have faith in them makes it an okay read i mean an interesting read it's not I wouldn't say it's depressing i think it's informative and 44:04 then you leave there's hope in it well my my fundamental hope and the only silver lining I see on this Trumpian cloud and storm uh is that it brings us back to first principles what is the purpose of our democracy of the United States in the world why um as citizens what do we owe each other uh as members of the same society uh what is this experiment that we're trying to uh undertake uh for the last 250 years u why are we now off track and how do we get back on track um these are fundamentals and I think that uh in an ironic way Donald Trump is forcing us back to the fundamentals it's true and the common good I mean if you take away the common good you realize you want it back you realize that without the common good without a sense of what the common good is and without an a moral uh 45:03 determination to achieve or try to achieve a common good uh all you have is a bunch of selfish crazy isolated individuals running around uh trying to uh make themselves as powerful and as wealthy as possible right and that's not a society well okay things I'm going to take from today among others fighting back works we have to do it immediately by the way Bernie and AOC in Los Angeles today on their oligarchy tour um so I think we have to keep up the fight and I think better understanding what's happening is only helpful even though it's depressing i think uh I hope you're right i hope you are right and Heather I want to say how lovely it is to be back in person ditto and I want to also thank all of you it's awfully good to see you and have you here here with us in person uh I want to thank Jordan Alport who is 46:01 our technical uh person behind the scenes who's done an extraordinary job uh Michael Lannis Cderon who is also absolutely wonderful and we couldn't live without him for a moment true um and uh Naomi Bradford uh many other people as well uh but I want to thank you especially because it's your um it's it's your commitment it's your determination it's your u values uh that really will pull us through this very very dark time thank you [Music]

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