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COMMENTARY THE COFFEE KLATCH ... SEPTEMBER 27TH 2025 with Robert Reich, Michael Lahannes Calderon, Katie Milne and Vishal Shankar The Dictator Oversteps PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmWZs9bXMio
The Dictator Oversteps Robert Reich with Michael, Katie and Vish Premiered Sep 27, 2025 1.36M subscribers ... 164,539 views ... 9.8K likes The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich Weaponizing the Department of Justice. Lashing out at the rest of the world. Stumbling into a shutdown. The wheels are coming off the Trump train — and he knows it. Let's discuss it all on today's Klatch. Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 And it is the Saturday coffee clutch uh with yours truly, Robert Rush. And Heather Lofthouse is going to be back with us next week. Uh but we thought we'd try something a little bit different today. And I want you to I want to introduce to you two people who you may not know. Uh one is Katie Mil. And Katie comes to us. She's our correspondent, our inequality media correspondent from Austin, Texas. Katie, hello. Hello Bob. How are you doing on this fine Saturday morning? I'm doing just great. Thank you for being with us. And Vish Shankar, our correspondent inequality media correspondent from Madison, Wisconsin. And Vish, how are you today? That's right. Calling in from the greatest city in America, Madison, Wisconsin. Uh, still pretty warm and sunny. We haven't gotten uh real fall yet. Did you say the greatest city in America? I mean, I'm taking a little a little umbrage. And then uh most of you know Michael Lahannes Calderon who is in in the East Bay uh in Berkeley. You're 1:03 not in the East Bay. Michael, thank you for joining us. Pleasure to be back. So I thought um you guys we would talk today about uh obviously as we normally do in the coffee uh what's happened during the week but particularly in terms of context you know what is it that it means? Uh if you take for example the indictment of James Comey uh which just occurred I mean what what do we need to know about that? What does it signify? What's important about it? And then uh the shutdown the looming federal shutdown. Uh what do we what's the context there? And then finally the tariffs. Uh you know all suddenly Trump does another tariff explosion. Uh and uh by the way, Jeffrey Epstein is off uh once again off the main highway of uh the American uh mind and we may be 2:02 talking about that too. Uh but just to start with regard to James Comey. Uh Michael, what what's uh what what's your sense of that? Well, it's not great. I think I'll state the obvious. Uh if I if I remember correctly, it's generally not a common practice for the Department of Justice to seek an indictment against a president's political enemies. Right. Well, that's right. Now, here I confess I'm old enough to remember in the wake of Richard Nixon, there was a lot of kind of reform. We called it reform in those days. Uh in which the White House was going to be completely independent of the Justice Department because Nixon had his own enemies list. Uh and there was uh use Nixon made use of the Justice Department to go after his enemies. And so uh it was very important in right after Nixon and beyond Nixon. I mean very important until this present 3:03 administration that there be no use of the justice department in personal political vindictive ways. And Bob, is this the first time? What else has the administration been doing recently in terms of weaponizing the Justice Department? Because this isn't the first time that they've kind of crossed a line. So what else has been going on? Well, that Katie, this is a really big deal. Um because uh here we know that the original US attorney could not bring an indictment against Comey. Um because uh there just wasn't enough evidence and the grand jury obviously didn't want to do it. Uh and there was an element of integrity. I mean lawyers are supposed to have some integrity. Lawyers who work for the government, lawyers who are lawyers. I mean there is a code of justice and uh and a kind of professional code uh and even the US attorney in the Eastern District of Maryland who was appointed by Trump said 4:03 no I'm not going to do it and which Trump said well fire him I'm going to put my own person in there uh again I mean my the criterion is somebody who's going to do what I want to do and he then said to Pam Bondi I think it was last week he said you must do it now now. Uh because the statute of limitations is running out. Uh and so u I mean this is a a huge deal. This is a naked power play. Katie, this I' I have not seen anything like this since uh well even Nixon disguised his enemies list and his prosecution of enemies behind some sort of gloss. This is not this is undisguised. This is out for everybody to see. And uh I mean I'm kind of curious, Bob, how do you see this fitting in with how Trump views uh clearly certain people as above the law? I mean, this is coming the same week we find out that Tom 5:01 Holman, uh the immigration zar, uh was taking $50,000 bribes. Uh and I mean, we've had Trump since inauguration day offering these insane pardons to January 6th riers and all sorts of Let me interrupt you for a second. How do you know Tom Hman was taking $50,000 bribes? There was no there was no indictment. There was no criminal uh finding. So Vish, where are you getting your information? Uh well, I saw this reported in MSNBC, which Oh, MSNBC. Who can trust MSNBC? The failing liberal MSNBC. Well, look at I mean, there was a lot of evidence in the public domain uh and it did appear on MSNBC and some other uh networks and newspapers uh that there that Homeman was taking bribes, but the Justice Department pulled the investigation. Uh and that's I think Vish what you're getting at. This is this is a pattern. Uh if it's somebody who's a friend of 6:04 Trump or or somebody who's an ally, you don't investigate. Uh if it's somebody who has done something horrible uh like uh the January 6th riers, you give them a pardon. Uh you you basically get them out of jail free. Uh and if it's somebody who is an enemy, and again, this is the most extreme example, James Comey, you actually have a criminal indictment of them. I I I mean this is and not to reopen ancient history, Bob, but James Comey, just for those who maybe weren't following politics in 2016, um very lucky souls, those ones, is one of the people who's arguably most responsible for Donald Trump winning the first time around, isn't he? Because he was responsible for the email investigation uh that to some degree sunk Hillary Clinton's candidacy in the last closing weeks of that election. Right. That's right. Comey was a Trump loyalist and it's easy to re to forget that the 7:03 only reason he turned around or at least Trump thought that Comey was no longer a Trump loyalist has to do with the Russian investigation in that first term uh in which uh Trump uh basically thought anybody who was involved in that investigation uh particularly the head of the FBI who cooperated with Congress uh was against him. I mean this is this is this is what we're dealing with. This is this is a ` not only malignant narcissist, but this is a paranoid uh person who if you're not actually with him, you are against him. And if you're against him, you are really targeted. Yeah. And I think it was really disturbing to see yesterday that Trump was threatening that there would be others. I mean, again, not unexpected, right? Um, but this is just more more of the same and it doesn't seem like it's going to end because nobody seems interested in stopping it or has the power to stop it. I mean, I read that to the group. Let's get back to that. Katie, you were just about to say something. 8:03 Yeah, a good segue from what Michael was saying. So what can our opposition party do beyond, you know, yet again sending another strongly worded letter, which I'm sure is striking the fear of God into Trump and his authoritarian um enablers. So what if any mechanisms do Democrats have to push back on this? Well, what is to stop the Democrats from holding hearings? I mean, maybe they have to hold the hearings in another building. I mean maybe have maybe you know but Democrats Senate Democrats could hold hearings on everything that's going on and attract a huge amount of press attention but they're not doing it. Why are they not doing it? Democrats stand up and be counted. uh the you know the the media would love to have a lot of of me of members of Congress and people in the administration and people in former administrations and uh you know a lot of people have a lot of 9:00 strong opinions and they have evidence and they have uh you know some people who were in the FBI before who are you know maybe maybe they want to talk maybe they're willing to talk why aren't the Democrats holding hearings anybody Well, I was I was just going to raise a small bit of credit. I think it was House Democrats uh who held a shadow hearing on a completely different subject uh a couple weeks ago. I think that was Primila Gyipol who did that. And I think the issue was like you said to some degree the media, even if Democrats put all of their effort into it, which I think they they could be doing more, I don't know that they would cover it. I think that that's where I would be skeptical because Trump is just this giant vortex of news creation that they can't they continue to be unable to escape. Well, I think I think you're right. If it's a small group of House Democrats holding a hearing, you know, it's not news. But if you have all of the Senate Democrats, there's a huge difference. Remember, they're they're the House is a gigantic, you know, messy organization. 10:05 Uh the Senate though, Senate Democrats, you've got a lot, you know, a number of them. They are very prominent uh in their states. Uh many of them are prominent nationally. And if they held a hearing, uh I think there would be a lot of attention uh given to what uh Trump is doing, the polit, you know, the the the politization of the Justice Department as a whole. Uh and uh I think they should. Fair enough. Well, there are a lot of other things that are happening in Congress this coming week. Maybe something that we should all be a little worried about. I know all all three of us wanted to ask you a little bit about the shutdown that is looming and I don't know, do you have any thoughts? You've been through a couple, right? I have been. I've been through several shutdowns. Um I would not wish this on anybody. It is a it's terrible because a shutdown means essentially there is no money to pay anybody to continue uh doing what they believe in. I mean 11:03 most of the people who are government employees uh have enough education enough credentials. They could do better on the outside uh of government in the private sector but they've chosen to be there in the government because they believe in whatever it is they are doing. Uh and a shutdown not only means they're not going to be paid uh but it means that they don't even know when they are going to be paid again. I mean this this is chaos. And then of course all of the public that is not getting the services uh that the public is entitled to get that Congress has uh you know appropriated. Uh it's it's a it's a an awful thing. I went through it at the Federal Trade Commission uh in the late 1970s and I went through it again when I was Secretary of Labor in 1994 and 1995 I think it was no 1995. This is when N. Gingrich and Bill Clinton uh 12:01 could not agree on a budget. Well, I think Vashall uh who's our Midwestern correspondent is also traditionally our our congressional correspondent. And Bashall, do you have any sense of what the Democratic strategy is around this shutdown? I mean, what have we seen so far? Well, it's it's very interesting because and I'm not one to usually give Schumer and Jeff much credit, but to their very limited credit here, they are uh staking out a position that unless uh the Republicans agree to uh extend some of the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act that are about to expire and and would send healthcare premiums skyrocketing, uh and unless they reverse some of those Medicaid cuts in the big ugly bill, uh they will not uh vote for a government funding bill. And I think that those are very reasonable demands. Uh Donald Trump seems to think something else entirely. Uh he's been tweeting wildly or I should say truthing wildly about this planned meeting. Not truththing. 13:03 Whatever it is, it's not truthing. Uh but but Vish, just to pursue that a little bit, the uh we've talked about this before. the the Democrats are in fact using this pending shutdown leverage and the Republicans need I think about eight Democratic votes in the Senate uh to get the money necessary to continue funding government. Uh and dem the Democrats are saying no, we're we're not going to do that unless you provide enough funding for the Affordable Care Act and for the Medicaid cuts. so that something in the order of 24 million Americans will not have to pay substantially more than they're already paying for health care. Uh in fact, a lot of them are going to be pushed out of health care and health insurance altogether because of the amounts that they they're already paying more. I mean, even given what the 14:00 Republicans have done so far, uh the typical person who is pushed off of the Affordable Care Act uh is now paying something in the order of $520 a month for health care and that's uh you know, multip multiply that by the number of people who are going to be hurt by this and you get a big chunk of the American population. Correct. And and I think this is a fight that Democrats can win. I mean, we've seen since January, Trump is basically running the government like he's a dictator. And uh you know, the the reverse side of that is that the public, if they see the government shut down, they know who they're going to blame for it. And it's Donald Trump and all of his craven enablers uh in the Republican party. I mean, I do want to flag because there was this memo this week from Russ Vote, who's the OM director, basically threatening and saying, 'If Democrats don't vote for our funding bill, we will start firing federal workers.' And I think David Dean made this point very excellently at the American Prospect. 15:01 This has already been happening since January. they have been arbitrarily, you know, through this Doge mania firing federal workers and in several cases having to bring them back when they've fired people who were essential to public safety and and key uh functions of the federal government. So, I think Democrats should call this this is a very very important point and it has to do with who's going to be blamed. I mean, let's assume that there's going to be a shutdown. It's going to be, you know, the funds run out on the 30th, the end of the 30th of September, midnight the 30th of September, which is just around the corner. Assume there's a shutdown. Uh my experience with shutdowns is that the big question politically is who is blamed? Is it the Republicans? Is it Democrats? Uh is it the president? Is it Congress? And uh in this instance, I think you're right, Vish. I think that if the Democrats stick to their guns and say it over and over and over, our 16:01 condition for joining you is you fully fund the Affordable Care Act, you make people, you know, you know, you you reduce the costs of health care as they should be reduced uh for 20 million Americans, uh then I think they are in a very good position. It puts the Republicans in a corner. And there is precedent for this. I mean, I don't know if folks remember, there were two shutdowns in the first Trump administration, uh, in 2018. They're both about, I think, the border wall and DACA, and Democrats held fairly firm in those, and the public resoundingly, uh, blamed Trump for shutting down the government for, you know, these these crazy projects like the border wall. So, yeah, I think Democrats need to really stick to their guns here. Uh, I think they're all united with the exception of of John Federman, which the less said about him, the better. But that's right. It's time for Democrats to fight. But let me let me ask our Texas uh representative here, our Texas correspondent, Katie, what I mean Trump has the bully pulpit. He has a 17:02 megaphone. He's got uh Truth Social. He posts all the time. uh the Democrats really don't have a united voice, a clear megaphone, a clear way of messaging uh in the you know in Texas uh where you are. I mean are how are people even hearing what the Democrats are saying? That's a great question. um couldn't agree more that the party as a as a whole, you know, not really hearing a ton from leadership, but I think there are a couple of representatives who actually are meeting the moment and speaking about this. Um, shout out to my own rep, Greg Casar. He's the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and he and the CPC I think have been really leading the charge on not just the shutdown fight but messaging and you know actually opposing and fighting back against the Trump administration as a whole. Um so I think you know the 18:00 leaders should look to those rising stars in the party and people who have actually been talking about this for longer than just the past two weeks and kind of let them take the reigns. um and you know fight back a little more. Well, is the media going to be I mean even if the Democrats were united and the message was actually honed very well and even if it got through to Texas and Katie, you're in Austin, Texas, which some people say is not real Texas. Uh but uh even if it got through to the rest of Texas or the rest of uh red America, uh is the media going to carry that message? Uh and this gets me back to another thing that happened this week with regard to Jimmy Kimmel and uh a lot of the affiliates of ABC not even carrying his monologue. Uh so is this something we should worry about? Michael, do you have any thoughts? I mean, even with 20% of the country not getting Kimmel's show, he still got, I think, four times the audience that he normally would that night and, you know, 19:06 upwards of 20 million views on the monologue on YouTube, which, you know, obviously goes above any of the broadcast control. This is a big deal. Upwards of 20 million views on YouTube. I mean, Kimmel's usual audience is 1.1 million for his normal monologue before Trump got involved and and and Brandon Carr and and so and then you had over 6 million who actually saw it and heard it and then on top of that you had another 20 million who heard it or saw it on YouTube. I mean, and probably countless millions more because again this is, you know, the digital ecosystem that we work in here at inequality media. you know, you're getting clips of the the full 30-minute monologue that also get millions of views on Tik Tok, on Instagram reels, on YouTube shorts. I mean, if the if the point was to quash Kimmel's voice, um, unsurprisingly, this kind of did the opposite. So going back to our question about can the Democrats get their 20:03 message through with regard to a pending shutdown or for that matter anything else. What I mean did we learn anything from what happened with Disney and Kimmel and Brendan Carr that is encouraging or discouraging in terms of getting the message out, getting the message through? What do you think? Yeah, I think I I think it's encouraging. Yeah, Katie. No, no, go ahead, Katie. I definitely agree, Vish. I think it's encouraging and I think it shows um that people are ready to take action if they're organized around it. I mean, after the announcement that he was suspended, a ton of people started canceling their Hulu subscriptions, their Disney Plus subscriptions, um Disney stock started to plummet. Um which means it just goes to show that these corporations will always care about their bottom lines more than taking a political stance. And that's for better or for worse. Um, and I think it also speaks to the danger of 21:02 corporate consolidation in media for sure because now you have just a handful of billionaires, many of whom are aligned with Trump. They're controlling what we see, what we read, what we watch. And then it also just gives the rest of us less choice in what we can access. You know, it's like, okay, ABC took them off the air. They're owned by Disney, who also owns ESPN, who also owns Hulu, who wants to own another streaming platform. So, it's really I think it's kind of this is exactly what these like market dominant firms want is they want to be able to control so many aspects of our lives that if we want to take a stance, if we want to vote with our dollar, our choices are so limited because it's like, okay, let me just go cancel Disney Plus and Hulu and ESPN and not watch this and not do this. So I think it really speaks to the fact that like monopolization and authoritarianism go hand in hand because once we don't have access to other independent voices once we're forced into participating in 22:01 these monopolies we don't have a voice in you know I thought excuse me for interrupting I I thought you were going in a slightly different direction at first because I thought you were saying that well you know with regard to Disney it looked like the people were breaking through Disney made a a 180°ree change uh and that was because it was so exposed to consumers and a consumer boycott was really having an effect. But you now are also alerting us to a counter trend which is that there is so much media concentration. I don't know if you saw this um uh Matt Stler had this uh figure last week uh and that was that in 1983 uh 90% of the media ownership was in the hands of 50 separate owners. that is 50 owners uh had 90% of media uh and now uh 90% of the media is in the hands of five just five big media owners and that substantiates or that underscores the 23:06 point you're making Katie and that is it's much easier for a a demagogue to control speech if you have just a few levers a few concentrated media places where that demog demagogue has got to suppress speech. Uh and uh so I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged. Absolutely. And uh the former Federal Trade Commission chair Lena Gan, she has spoken a lot and worked a lot at length about addressing corporate concentration and we actually have a great video with her about this very topic about how monopolies reduce our economic freedom. So everyone should go check it out after this. Well, we we should check it out. And by the way, you guys have been doing a fabulous job. Let me just say that. I should have said that earlier. Uh you Inequality Media team, you're you're just great. And let me just say to the people out there that 24:01 if you didn't know it, I'm pretty old. Uh and these guys are not. I mean, I don't I'm not going to embarrass you in asking you your age. Michael, I when you last week, we talked about you being 50 years younger than me. Uh and Katie and Vish, you're pretty close to 50 years younger than me. And so, uh, well, you know, your views on what's happening are very important. Your understanding of the context is very important because you're inheriting this mess. Not to put That's very exciting. Love that for us. We're thrilled. That for us. Good. I'm I'm glad that you're thrilled. Uh but it it it does it does get us also to this whole theme of dictatorship, democracy, dictatorship. uh because I think that uh not only with regard to James Comey and using the Justice Department for his own personal ends uh but all the things that Trump is doing 25:02 that are about personal vindictiveness or personal uh acquisition of more money or personal uh sort of assertion of power. It's not about the public interest. It's not about his vision of what's good for America. It's all about what's good for Trump. And people are beginning to see that. Now I This is my faith. This is my silver lining. This is my cup half, you know, or maybe an eighth full speaking. We I want to know what you guys think about this. I mean, is it do you think that Trump is overstepping that people are beginning to see that he's all about his own, you know, malignant narcissist needs? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. No, no, I 100% agree. You see this actually in a lot of the public polling that's being done on Trump's approval. I mean, not only is his general approval rating really in the toilet, but on specific issues. I mean, he's underwater by double digits on the economy, which used to be one of 26:06 his strongest issues in the first term. Uh, and and even immigration, which was one of his strongest issues way back in January because the public has seen what his immigration policy looks like in practice. It's shipping people, innocent people off to foreign goollocks. Um, and if I can just make one more point, we're also seeing this in the special elections and uh a lot of the offcycle elections we've seen this year. Democrats have been overperforming in many districts, particularly in red states, swing states. Right here in Wisconsin, we had the Supreme Court election uh by significant margins. And I I think that's a very good sign for what we're going to see next year in the midterms. And the special elections you're referring to there there were a few special elections very recently uh where the Democrat you say overperformed just translated into non-political speech. That means the Democrat did much better than was expected given Trump's performance in that same area. Uh do you 27:03 do you rec I don't want to put you on the spot. Do you but you do recall anything about those special elections? You know, I don't recall the exact numbers, but this week we had there was a state senate race in Georgia where uh I mean the Democrats did come up short. The Republicans won it, but they really shaved down the margin by which Republicans won that district. And it was a it was a pretty red deep red district. Um so even in these deep red pockets, you're seeing a lot of push back. Uh the big one, of course, was the one in Arizona, uh the special election to fill uh Galva's seat, uh with his daughter. um she I think performed much better than than Harris and her father had last November. So I mean you're seeing this what's interesting is you're seeing this everywhere. You see it in deep blue districts. You saw it in Florida a few months ago where they had special elections to fill the gates and Walt seats. The Supreme Court election is probably the best example in Wisconsin. I mean Elon Musk spent more money than has ever been spent in a state judicial race in American history. and his candidate got blown out of the 28:01 water by 11 points. I mean, there is something real awakening in the American public. Awakening. I love that term, the awakening. The sleeping giant is awakening. Uh, well, I I think that that's absolutely right. I mean, I think that uh particularly this week when you think all the things that are going on that reveals him to be the dictator, the tyrant that he really is. It's not just uh you know blue blue died in the world Democrats who are seeing this uh but I wanted to get and and touch on the tariffs because this is something Katie you were talking about u you know the economy and how a lot of people are waking up to the fact that he was elected on the premise that he was going to bring down costs. That's what people wanted more than anything else. You look at the exit polls, they were mostly concerned about uh prices being so high 29:00 and what's happening now, these tariffs that he's putting on everything unilaterally uh just arbitrarily. Uh well, this week uh if you're if you're putting maybe you're doing a kitchen, you're you're remodeling your kitchen. Is anybody remodeling their kitchen? There's no chance any of us. We're the wrong generation. Okay, you're not remod I happen to know people who are remodeling their kitchens and you're modeling if you are remodeling your kitchen. What he did under the rubric of national security is he puts this huge tariff unilaterally on every every kitchen uh uh appliance uh not appliance but every every kitchen cabinet cabinet cabinet is the word uh that uh comes from any place around the world I mean national security what's the connection I was going to say I think the timing of these additional terrorists which are absurd. It's anywhere from like 40% to 30:02 100% of tariffs on all these random goods. I think the timing is also fascinating while we're facing a government shutdown over insane premium hikes for health care costs. I mean, some people are going to see their premiums go up by more than $1,200 next year if these subsidies aren't extended. So it's so I mean it's not funny but it is funny that he ran on lowering costs and all in the span of one week he's like okay your health care bills are going to go up by a ton if you even keep your health coverage and I'm stopping tariffs on a whole new round of goods that you use in your day-to-day life. So I think absolutely I think I think that's why the polls are dropping. That's why we're seeing Vish what you're talking about. That's why the special elections are are going in such an extraordinary direction toward the Democrats. Uh you know, a lot of people are saying he's a he's a dictator. Uh I don't want a dictator. And b he's putting huge costs on me in terms of health care and everything else 31:03 that's coming from abroad. And I didn't I didn't buy this. I I thought we were going to get the opposite of this kind of uh these kinds of costs. And I I also really want to stress I mean the 100% tariff on certain kinds of pharmaceutical products. I mean that's going to be what I think impacts a lot of people in this country. Uh you know those of us without kitchen cabinets to renovate or those of us who unlike perhaps certain presidents have a million bathrooms to fill in their mansion with bathroom vanities. Um but regardless um I mean I it also speaks to the dictatorial nature the decrees that are continuing to come out on Truth Social, right? because he was saying, you know, you have to do this by next Wednesday and but also you're exempt if you're, you know, if you have a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant under construction or you're breaking ground. So, I mean, if I'm a a pharmaceutical executive, I'm just going to start a factory maybe that never gets finished, right? I mean, all you have to do is meet the letter of the random decree and not really He'll probably forget by next 32:04 week, right? And that's right. The letter of the random decree is you start you start you break ground for a factory in the United States and you're free you're free of the tariff. Uh and so everybody is going to say yes. Okay. We're going to get that little lot and we're going to break ground. We have a you know we'll have a little breaking ground ceremony and uh that's great. And who knows what he's going to say next week anyway. uh you know I think one of the problems that the American economy is now suffering in terms of very dramatically low job growth at the same time you have inflationary pressures uh is a lot of companies are saying I don't know what this guy's going to do next I mean how can we possibly plan for the future how can we make investments in additional capacity or jobs because it's all coming out of one person one person one man uh I I I was talking to a friend in Mexico on the phone uh just two days ago and he 33:04 was telling me that uh you know they can't this is worldwide. This is obviously not the United States. This is you have manufacturers you have companies around the world that are stopping they are just stopping dead in their tracks. They don't know what to do because they don't know what is going to happen with their major market which is the United States. And many of them are saying, 'Well, we've got to find new markets and we're going to make bigger investments in Europe and in China.' Yeah. I mean, not surprising when you Oh, go ahead, Katie. Sorry. Oh, I was just going to say I also think Trump's immigration agenda is having a role in that as well. I mean a couple weeks ago we saw this raid on a Hyundai plant in Georgia whereas all South Korean workers and they said that they were here illegally and the South Korean government was outraged. I mean they were shackled like their hands to their feet. They were all like frog marched out and detained for days. No contacts with lawyers. And I mean, what foreign 34:05 company is going to want to invest in a a country where their workers might get rounded up and detained into a black box for who knows how long. So, I think that also is playing a role. Absolutely. And some of those were workers who were there to advise Americans on building this new high-tech plan, right? I mean, they were invited by us as part of our industrial policy efforts from the previous administration. So, just to summarize, there's a kind of a split screen here. On the one side of the split screen, we've got a a dictator, uh, you know, a a a kind of malignant narcissist, uh, who, uh, is is kind of going getting crazier and crazier and crazier and doing things that people everybody is saying like Comey, uh, like, uh, like firing up these, uh, even higher 100% tariffs, uh, and doing them all by himself. uh and nobody with consult nobody's cons consulted and nobody even knows what he's going to do tomorrow and on the other kind of side of the split screen you got more and more Americans who are saying we don't 35:09 want this we didn't buy this even though I even though some of us voted for him we want him out of there as fast as possible so let me just ask the three of you what do you think are the chances of Democrats not only taking the house and the senate in 2026, but also having enough votes in the Senate to impeach this man. Vish. Um, well, you know, I always hate to predict elections because you never really know and the last decade should tell us that. I think the best path to doing that is, and you've been writing about this on Substack recently, Bob, leaning into progressive economic populism as the antidote to Trump's authoritarian populism. And there's I mean there's a ton of great candidates 36:04 around the country who are doing that uh from the progressive flank. I mean, in Michigan, you've got Abdul Elsed who's running a progressive campaign. in Maine. Graham Platner, the former uh oyster fisherman, has really sort of electrified the state there to take on Susan Collins. Um, and I mean, a lot of this goes back to Mumdani's win in New York. I mean, they're going to have the general election in a couple months there. Uh, but that's really sort of electrified the Democratic base, I think, in the right direction towards Yeah. taking back the House. Uh, hopefully taking back the Senate. In some states, they're going to have to get creative. You got Dan Osborne in Nebraska who's running the sort of independent populist campaign. Um, but you know, they really need to speak to what gets people engaged in politics, which is, yeah, these material issues. We've talked about it the whole show. Trump is flailing on the economy. And I think Democrats would do well to point that out and not just, you know, point out that Trump is bad, but articulate what is our compelling alternative 37:02 vision? What is our plan to make your lives better? And that alternative vision, that compelling economic vision, economic vision you're saying is you you're labeling as economic populism. But what does that mean? What does it actually mean? What does what's the message? We've talked about the message in terms of keeping the government from shutting down. But what's the message that Democrats now need to say? The people you are talking about around the country, Vish, who are Democrats who are uh who are getting it right. Well, you can go issue by issue. I mean, healthcare, we've talked about that a lot on the show. Uh, you see the sort of problems with having a system that's dependent on these tax credits and government shutdown. Uh, I mean, why not fully embrace Medicare for all, a singlepayer uh, health care system that would deliver better health outcomes and, uh, I mean, be cheaper overall? Absolutely. That's communism. $15 minimum wage. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's that's probably run into, huh? Uh, well, I look at I'm you're you're you're pushing on an open door. 38:04 Absolutely. And paid family leave. I mean, people need paid family leave. We're the only advanced country that doesn't have it. Uh and also child care and elder care. And mom Donnie uh in New York is talking about child care uh and uh talking about financing it by increasing taxes on the very wealthy. Uh anything else we just in our final minutes here we want to put on the table? Stronger unions. Stronger unions. stronger unions. U absolutely, absolutely. And the reason you want stronger unions is because you want to give people more bargaining leverage to get better wages and better working conditions. Let's not let's not kid ourselves. That's what it's all really about. This comes down to power. Uh counterveailing power is a great man. Counterveiling power. That's right. you can't get much more power in terms of concentrated uh big big monopolistic corporations. Uh and that is exactly 39:04 what's happening. And Democrats, if they knew what they needed to do, would be taking on that kind of monopolistic power. And they would also be talking about antitrust law, breaking up these big media conglomerates and other conglomerates. Uh let me just uh thank the three of you uh again for this. You know, I didn't give you much notice. In fact, uh, Vish, how when when did I ask you or when were you asked to do this? I Well, so I was actually I was flying back from Berkeley and I got off at my layover at the Phoenix, Arizona airport to an email from Michael saying that I would be on the clutch. And I said, 'Sure, why the hell not?' I I I do want to quickly say to the audience, if people didn't like this, we'll just pretend the episode never happened. If they did, please let us know. And we will be renaming the program from the coffee clutch to the mcclutchlin group. Oh, I don't know. This is that's that's that I'm I'm not sure I can possibly abide that. Uh but thank you, Vish and Katie. 40:06 Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Um also want to thank Jordan Alport who's uh doing duty today uh behind the scenes. uh and uh and and I I want to thank all of you. Uh just in terms of summarizing uh this is a split screen uh phenomenon, not split screen in terms of these young guys over here and and this old guy here. We'll split screen in terms of uh an old guy in the White House born 10 days before me. Really riding rough shod and continuing to ride roughshod over the constitution, over our freedoms, over our needs, over what people expect from our government. And I think this is and will go down historically as the week that people started waking up the vast giant of America, the sleeping 41:02 giant of America who is normally sleeping uh but does wake up occasionally and woke up and I saw it. I'm old enough to remember uh seeing the the the sleeping giant wake up during the Joe McCarthy communist witch hunts uh and finally in the form of Joseph Welsh who was the uh who was representing the army in the army McCarthy hearings. Joseph Wel saying on television and I was sitting there with my father and Joseph Wel pointed to Joe McCarthy and said, 'Have you no decency, sir? Have you no decency?' Uh, and that began the to be the end of Joe McCarthy. uh just saying it out loud, making sure people know that they're not alone, making sure that everybody knows that they are part of a majority, a vast majority who is outraged at what is going on. On October 18th, there is going to be uh another the second No King's Day 42:04 uh demonstration, No King's Day 2.0. I hope you will participate. Uh and I hope again you understand that the best antidote, the best antidote for your feelings of powerlessness, of anger, of despair, of stress. The best antidote for all of this is political political activism because the more active you are, the more you are actually taking a role, taking a part in trying to reverse this situation, uh the calmer, the better you will feel personally, but also the better America will be, the better even the world will be. So again, thank you all for tuning in. Michael and Katie and Vish, thank you for participating. We'll see you next week. [Music]

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