The hour flew by and Liddell had plenty to say about everything.
During the last oddball American election campaign Liddell invited me to lunch in midtown Manhattan. He loves Kiwis, always greeting you with a bear hug, the sort of thing you'd expect from a boy from Matamata, a stone's throw away from where Jacinda Ardern grew up in Morrinsville.
Over lunch Liddell seemed to have little truck for Trump and like the rest of us had some doubts about whether he'd make it.
Well Trump has and so has Liddell, who by the President's own reckoning is now in line to become his top economic adviser. The last one walked because he couldn't talk Trump out of the hefty tariffs on steel and aluminium coming into effect by the end of next week and was obviously treated something like an apprentice by the President in his former incarnation as a reality telly show host.
Ardern's never met Liddell but her Trade Minister David Parker has, describing him as a loyal New Zealander which is just what we could need to curb the excesses of the Don.
We're now trying to get an exemption from the tariffs on the $62 million worth of metal we export stateside every year, a droplet in the American steel and aluminium bucket.
Our argument would be music to Trump's ears though, given that the trade between our two countries is ever so slightly in their favour which is the way he wants it to be.
And who better to sing it than a Kiwi voice in the Oval Office?