 May the 27th. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. It's Trump week. I'm Tim Apochella, your host. And welcome everyone. And the title of the show is Trump Calls Rig Election Making a Comeback for 2020. If you've been watching the news of late, we know that we're back to, vaguely, it's back to the future. It's 2016 again. And Donald Trump is now not only implying, but he's explicitly stating that the election is going to be rigged because many states are going to, hopefully, allow mail-in balloting, particularly in this environment of COVID-19. Mail-in balloting makes a lot of sense, particularly for those seniors that are frightened to go to the polling stations. But before we get into that, I'd like to say welcome to Winston Welch, Stephanie Dalton, and Cynthia Sinclair. Welcome, everybody. Aloha. Aloha. We got an election that's now five months away, give or take. We have basically a very virulent virus that's very infectious. The distancing is at least six feet away. The requirement of mass is in order. And a lot of people still don't feel comfortable with going to a polling place to be inside for minutes, hours. Who knows how long it takes for them to get their ballot and vote in a voting machine. So, rightly so, they would probably like to have the opportunity to do a mail-in balloting. However, Donald Trump has taken to Twitter and to the airwaves and said, it's so easy to defraud a mail-in ballot system, yet Donald Trump votes via mail ballot, via the mail system, a ballot mail. And he's setting the stage, as he did in 2016, for the quotation of a rigged election. Winston, do you find this of concern? Because I certainly do. I find that for those many followers, be it 45%, 48% of his followers, some of them are quite radical. And if they feel that Donald Trump has been cheated out of an election because potentially he lost, will they take to the streets? Will this be a basis for the incitement of violence or worse yet? Winston, what are your thoughts? Well, any person needs to be concerned when major candidates, months before any elections say it's going to be rigged. In this case, it's patently false. But it doesn't matter what you tell people. I've read today that 44% of Republicans think that the vaccine will carry something from bill dates, a carrier wave or something, so they can track you at any time. We're not dealing with people that are rationally thinking right now, but I think what we need to look at is hope that if Donald Trump were to lose the election, resoundingly, and with observers everywhere that say this is the case, that the formerly known as Republican Party, the folks that are supporting you right now, decide whether or not they want to have a future in this country and say, you know what, this was not a redilection, the people spoke, let's reclaim our party and move on. And that is, if that's the case, and you have a leadership that steps up into the void that's there now and says, no, this was fair. We are going to move on as a people. That is our only hope, I think at this point, or Donald Trump's saying, you know what, yeah, I just did this so I can get great ratings and good luck with the rest of the country as you move on. It's not going to happen. Well, Winston, you know, back in the first couple of years, we had Republicans who are now Trump-licans. They used to speak out and say, well, I don't agree with Donald Trump on this issue or that issue. And they actually would take to the airwaves and say, that's not representative of how we feel in the Senate or how we feel in the House of Representatives, or my constituents in my district, there's none of that anymore. We haven't seen those kind of comments at least a year and a half from from our Senate Republicans or our Senate House House representatives. It's whatever Donald Trump says goes. And the question is, to what degree does this gain traction? And without any filtering from the senators or the House representatives, or governors, or you know, even mayors of certain cities, is this a free pass for people to bring out their their arms and their second amendment rights and say, you stole the election from Donald Trump? Well, hopefully, hopefully not. Hopefully, we realize that we're not there. But you know, there was a really good article in the Washington Post called The Wages of Lick's Spital, Spitalry, and it was about Republicans that are being squashed by Donald Trump, so that if they he says he wants them on their knees, it's not enough just to grovel, they have to worship him. You have a party of which was formerly half the nation. Now it's essentially a party of one. So if that one person is not leading it anymore, there's a chance to regain. I don't know what they'll regain because they've sacrificed so much in bowing down to Donald Trump. I don't know how they are going to find their way again, but I wish that they will find their way again. I hope that they come back and say, you know what, we're all Americans, we have a different point of view. It's not insane. It's just a different point of view. It's a conservative point of view like we used to have in the olden days, say five years ago. So that's my hope is that we come together and realize this was a total aberration. He's still going to maintain an incredible amount of power after he leaves office. But hopefully the country will move on and we need to look at it post Donald Trump America, a reconstruction of the nation as we will and rehabilitation of our right. Thank you, Winston. Thank you. Hey, Stephanie, you know, Trump took to Twitter and basically, in very bold black and white text said, this is a fraud, the mail in ballots are fraud. He's going after states like Nevada, Wisconsin, California, all states that have mail in ballots. For the first time, Twitter said, okay, we're going to put under his text, a fact check disclaimer. That's the first time that's ever been done to Donald Trump. What you talked about that, and the fact that he's trying to change the narrative about a mail in ballot election, which of course, as you well know, Hawaii is part of now 100%. Yeah, very good, good point to bring up and discuss. First of all, the Twitter has been threatened by him for the close down for which there's no authority that he has to do that. He has to do that through the commissions and through the Congress, if he actually wants to pursue that. However, what I'm seeing is and hearing or reading is that the Twitter has done this one time and Twitter's kind of like now not really wanting to do it anymore and or holding back on other other places where they they need to fact check and correct and and cite the evidence. And the point for them is that once you do it, you're done, you're doing it. You've set the precedent. So I think that we're going to get more into that because Twitter now, you know, may be intimidated and concerned about regulation as is all of the Well, Jack Dempsey, Jack Dempsey has taken other people off Twitter completely without even fact checking them. They were just so offensive that he's violated, they violated their policies and on the air rules. And certainly Donald Trump has violated those policies. And finally, Twitter came to to his senses. And we'll talk a little bit later about what they didn't come through the rescue to when it comes to his comments about Joe Scarborough and some of those other nasty things he posted on Twitter. So you're right. Very important. So I'd like to see Twitter move ahead. In fact, as of last night, I removed my Twitter account in very silent protest. Very good. That's a very that's a good model. I may be, you know, that should be followed. If there's enough of that counter pressure on Twitter, they might get to balance them those advantages and disadvantages and and risk the intimidation continued in intimidation and threats from Trump. He can't really do anything for that industry at all. So but this is very frightening. And it's just again, Donald Trump being the tip of the iceberg, in other words, because all of those things that you said, they're ongoing because everything that he's doing is actually supported, I believe that research can be done to see that under each one of his moves, there's a huge effort to compel whatever it is he's saying that he wants done. It's either through the appointment of the judges through the Congress, or it's through his cases in the Supreme Court Texas being a particular one for the mail in that Supreme Court is going to rule on that. It's 9% of the nation's voters. So if they come down on that or or against it, it's a big effect. So he's he's on top. He's on top of this. This is not this is a strategy from Donald Trump. No two ways about it. Exactly. He is on it. And we're seeing it through this this silliness. Yeah. Well, on Trump week, Cynthia Sinclair, you've been shouting from the rooftops that Donald Trump is going to do something somewhere somehow before the election that either is going to imply that he's cheating, or he's going to try to gain the system so that there's a disenfranchisement of voters. And you know, from what state one never knows, but somehow some way, he was going to try to edge its way into the line so that he cuts people out from their ability to vote. I can't think of a better way than trying to indicate, or trying to give the impression that mail in balance is fraudulent. Cynthia, you have the air on this, you've been for a year, well over a year, you've been shouting on this one. Yes, I have. And now what I think he's doing is just gas lighting America. By putting into our brains that voting by mail is not safe. Most people, like the people here on our panel, we can look past that and see it for what it is. But his Trump lakens, and all of his base, they are so susceptible to this kind of gas lighting. And that's what makes it so dangerous. Now, because of what happened on Twitter, Trump has now launched a new website called is it called the truth over facts dot com. And if you go to it and watch it, you will be deeply disturbed that this kind of gas like an Alex Jones is like an Alex Jones conspiracy website. Definitely a conspiracy website. And it's all about the Democrats being in conspiracy against them. Right? So it's all about and the irony of the title is what just struck me is this, you know, the truth over facts. Wait a minute. The truth over facts. They're not separate things. And yet they're making them separate. So that when people like the people that are Trump lakens, the people who do support him are going to read this stuff. And they're going to go, Oh, okay, well, this is the truth. Those are the facts. But this is the truth. Now, wait, you can't separate those two things. And the title of this new website he's come out with, does that very thing. And that's the danger. Okay, let me ask you this then. I mean, how do we proactively and I know when I say we I'm talking about be a government forces or you know, the judicial system, how do they proactively prevent Donald Trump convincing his his loyal followers that he's been edged out of a fair election. And what becomes of it? I mean, the the term incite riot comes to my mind or sedition comes to my mind. How does that proactively be addressed so that we don't find ourselves four months from now or five months from now in that environment? Well, we have DC Abrams out there just calling from the top of her lungs as loud as she can, you know, that this needs to change that we need to do something about this. And so that helps. There's people that are I wish they would put her on the news every single day, though, so she could talk about it. I think that the state, the state recorders and the people that the Secretary of State is not who does all of the voting in each state. Yeah, voting is the Secretary of State. So I think the Secretary of State in the states that are not being, you know, altered by all this misinformation. And I think those people need to stand up. All of those Secretary of States need to stand up and say something. Say this is the right way to do it. And then we've got people like the guy in Georgia, who's absolutely gerrymandered every district so bad, that it's all Republican. It's got to be Republican, even if it's predominantly Democratic. But because it's been gerrymandered so bad, we don't know that. So I think that those things are the most important that people that are on the ground in each state need to be out there every single day talking to their constituents. That's what Right. Thank you. Thank you very much, Cynthia. I'm going to switch here a little bit. You know, it's it's May the 27th and the SpaceX was this recently scrubbed due to bad weather. It did not launch. And it only too bad that bad weather didn't stop Donald Trump from launching on Twitter this Memorial Day weekend. Here we have the tale of two trumps. On one hand, we had Donald Trump very, very solemnly on a solemn basis at Fort McHenry, speaking about Memorial Day, the death of many veterans through military campaigns and wars. And although it was scripted, it was a subdued Donald Trump. Then minutes later, Donald Trump launches into Twitter. And now he does he launch into it, he takes it to the stratosphere. He attacks Hillary Clinton, he attacks Nancy Pelosi, he attacks Stacy Abrams, he's going after Joe Scarborough. I'm just going to read a couple of them because some of these things are have way, way across the bridge of decency. And one of them is the attack on Joe Scarborough, because he's bringing up once again, this notion that Joe Scarborough somehow was involved with the murder of one of his political aides back in 2001, I believe. And the bottom line is this individual young young lady had a heart event, and then she hit her head in the office. And they found her the next morning. She clearly had an undiagnosed heart event. And ever since then, since Joe Scarborough has taken issue with Donald Trump, Donald Trump has brought this this conspiracy that he's ginned up against him. And what finally happened is the husband of that young woman that died couldn't take anymore. He wrote a very poignant letter to Jack Dempsey, the CEO of Twitter. And I'm just going to read some of this because some of this is number one, it was very well written. But secondly, very heartfelt. I'm asking you to intervene in this instance, because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him, the memory of my dead wife, and perverted it for a perceived political gain. I have more in my wife every day since her passing. I've tried to honor her memory and our marriage. As her husband, I feel that one of my marital obligations is to protect her memory, as I would have protected her in life. Twitter, although they apologized to the family, they're not taking it off. Now, tell it to Trump's Twitter, put on a fact check, because of Trump's claims of fraudulent mail-in ballots, yet he can spew this kind of venom out in the social media. And Twitter did not raise a finger other than a very, very shallow apology, and that they're working on policies that they haven't placed, but they haven't quite worked on them yet. They could take that quote off immediately, and remove it immediately, and they choose not to. This is the tale of two Trumps. This is the tale of Trump, this Memorial Day weekend, where not only did we honor fallen veterans, but we also take acknowledgment that there's 100,000 deaths in the United States of fellow Americans who have died from COVID-19. Not a mention, narrow word, but he certainly has enough time to attack Hillary Clinton by saying that she's not right. And then he attacks Nancy Pelosi by saying, what's up with her polygrip? And then he attacks Abraham, saying she's had a tough race and she kissed a lot of babies, visited a lot of restaurants in every state. And if Joe Biden doesn't hire her, he's a racist, we're not doing so. These are deplorable things. These are things, this is a bridge too far. Winston, any thoughts on what Donald Trump has done? And how can we shut him up? Well, there's no bridge too far. We thought that that was crossed months before the election, a year before the election, anyone who listened to Donald Trump over the years thought that is outrageous. It's been everything he says is a bridge too far. They're just extending the bridge, widening the road. I think like Stephanie says, that these are just the latest shiny objects, talking about Nancy Pelosi's polygrip. There's a pandemic going on. We need a president who acts presidential, if nothing else, just for himself. But that, you know, as you think about, what is the appeal of Donald Trump? I think that it goes back to this fundamental like three year old id type of thing where people just want to lash out and say whatever they want to do and do whatever they want to do. And that appeals to people who are angry and frustrated. And they may actually be horrified by what he's doing, but they're not going to say it because he's promoting whatever policy or that happens to be their niche thing. But normal human beings can't look at him and say, this is horrendous behavior. They're probably not going to say it. They're going to think it. I don't know if they're going to vote for him again. But that grounds for his support, it may evaporate after a while, and people go back to being normal and just saying, Yeah, that guy, he kind of gave us voice to all the horrible, awful things that that people want to say when they're feeling horrible and awful. But that's not who I am. That's not who I want to be. So I'm going to vote for a normal person that can normally run an age. This kind of ties into the mail in ballot fraud item that Donald Trump has brought up. In fact, we just got a question here. I want to thank the person who's submitted this question. I'll propose it to you, Winston. And that is, you know, Hawaii still has a mail in ballot process this year. And it's worked in all these other states. Why do people think that it's a fraud? Is this just again, the hypnosis that Donald Trump is able to apply to to those that are? Well, not everyone's a blind follower of Donald Trump yet. They're starting to question the fact that these might be fraudulent. Well, when the President of the United States says something, we have been trained all of our lives to listen. And if he says the World Health Organization is a fraud, is the World Health Organization a fraud, if he says that it doesn't really matter what he says, we have been trained to it's heat, but there's power in what he does and what he says, that's why the whole mask thing is an interesting thing. But if you look at at the voter fraud thing, this is something that's very convenient, easy, easy to cause chaos in the future, because he's sowing the seeds right now. As far as the mail in thing goes, you know, the voter system in our country is not the most secure, you've seen hacking of machines, you've seen, like Florida, the hanging Chad, it's sort of in our collective consciousness that there may be something going on, so he's playing off of that fear. But the reality is, is that mail in voting is being used successfully in Republican led states and Democrat led states, and it's a safe, convenient way to vote. There's safer ways to make it, I'm sure, but we don't have one system that goes across the country, we don't that the Congress has turned down money to ensure more safety in our voting system. So without some help, you know, this is a very easy thing to buy into, and I encourage people to turn on Fox News and America One and Rush Limbaugh and listen to that news cycle for 48 72 hours. And if you're not afraid, and you're not believing that the stuff that they're selling, they're not doing their job right. But once you start listening to it, you get the carrier wave, the hypnosis, the whatever is going on, and you start thinking, Whoa, is this really going on? So it's it's strange times a week that that is a great message. Thank you, Winston, for your thoughts on that and your your your analysis of that. Hey, Stephanie, does Twitter have an obligation to stop this kind of yellow journalism? I don't even know what you want to call it. Just this tripe. Does this Twitter have an obligation? I remember Facebook years ago actually hired an army of people to, you know, view in some of the comments. And if it doesn't adhere to their policies and and behavior online, then they're removed. Twitter's not doing that or hasn't been doing that. Should they? Well, we'll see. Like I said, they put their foot in the water. They've already done it once. Once in once once involved, you're going to be required to continue on. They're going to have to fight that that's what they're going to have to fight. So I don't know if there's any reg or anything like that to encourage them to do that. But we'll see how that goes. But I want to I want to say that there are two things which I still am proud to be an American. And I'm still proud of many of our leaders. And one one of them is that we are following the rule of law. We are putting up with this idiot and just indescribable arrogance, arrogant person who's fulfilling this role for us. But because of our law, and our way of operating, we're, we're going with it until he finishes his term. So he's eroding the law. And inch by inch, yard by yard, he's eroding the rule of law. And he's getting away with more and more. We're not Tim, we're not the rule of law is he serves for years, he was duly elected. Okay, so that is a lesson that is a huge model of democracy. So that's in place. And I'm proud of that. We haven't gone to civil war. We've got time to go. But we haven't done the things you ordinarily do to assuage these these antagonisms and these tensions, and they are probably greater than they've ever been. And so the other the other thing I'm very proud of leadership for, which carried on down to us is that that nobody's using these nicknames. It's only Donald Trump. Okay, so I mean, I even call him an Ignoramus is what I wanted to use earlier and didn't use it. But I refrain from it because our leadership is not doing that of either side, you know, Republican or Democratic. So there are two really major models of, first, the rule of law, and then secondly, the appropriate Okay, good points. Orments. Good points, Stephanie, we're almost out of time. I want to give Cynthia the last word on this issue about the things that he's tweeted this weekend, Memorial Day weekend, a very solemn, solemn weekend, and the horrible things he's tweeted. But also, you know, the fact that he's now making wearing a mask or not wearing a mask, a matter of politics versus science and health. Cynthia, you have the last word. Well, you know, we are talking about how he has been gas lighting us with this, you know, it's not safe, or you don't need to wear a mask, you know, or be a real man, don't wear a mask. I believe he's not wearing a mask because he wears makeup and he's afraid his makeup is going to get smeared. I honestly believe that. You know, everybody, it's just he's trying to protect the makeup on his face. And it really hit me the other day when I came back from the store and I took off my mask and I had some makeup on my mask and I went, that's why he doesn't wear a face. I think it's very, very possible anyway. Alright, make a whole lot of sense. Otherwise, the thing is, in gas lighting and in everything, when you hear something enough times, you start to believe it. And even if it's just in the back of your mind, and it's not, you know, up ahead in your conscious mind, it still is there, this little inkling of mistrust or this little inkling of well, maybe it's true. And for people like us that I think are so far on the other side, and everything he says is suspect. But if you don't live in that place of everything he says being suspect, then you end up wondering people that aren't sure of stuff, you know, they're easily led one way or another. And even not a concrete, this person knows that mail-in voting is dangerous, still in the back of his head. So then at the end, when he has set the stage to be able to claim that he was really, you know, robbed of the election because of this fraudulent mail-in voting, then these people that have that in the back of their mind can go, oh yeah, he was robbed. Yeah, I remember. That's right. I've known so long time, but mail-in voting was like Donald Trump's whispering in every one's ear and someone will remember it, some won't. Alrighty, we have run out of time. Cynthia, I want to thank you very much for appearing on Trump week. Stephanie, you know I want to say thank you to you as well and I appreciate everything you bring to the table. And Winston, Winston Welch, thank you so much for your insightful comments. And until next week, Wednesday, 11 o'clock, I'm Tim Apatel, your host, Aloha.