 Welcome back to a very important show, Trump Week, and, you know, our title today is Bob Muller's Day Off, as he's off. It's a triple entendre. We'll talk about that in a minute. That's him, Apachele, Cynthia Sinclair, for our every week Trump. Good morning, Jay. Good morning, Jay. Good morning. I wanted to read you guys an email I got regarding a posting my brother Gene made on his Facebook, and it's a very interesting posting. I'll try to read it quick. How best to understand the pathology of the Trump administration is a question that has increasingly been on my mind. I have concluded that there is, in fact, no administration at all. Instead, what our country is witnessing is the executive branch equivalent of a sole proprietorship, in essence, a business that is owned by a single individual. In such a business, if the owner wants to work from home, it's okay, Mar-a-Lago. Dealmaking, a.k.a. diplomacy, is done personally in North Korea. Secrecy trumps transparency by a country mile that will tax returns, war on the news media, unheard of nondisclosure agreements, refusal to open the Muller report for public view. Nepotism. Nepotism is fine, putting your unqualified son-in-law and daughter in positions of responsibility. New hires for important positions are not vetted, but selected based on the owner's personal instinct, and for reasons other than qualifications or merit. The entire cabinet, okay, making Newt Gingrich's wife ambassador to the Vatican, numerous other senior positions, such as an unqualified proposed nominee to the Federal Reserve Board, who underpaid his federal income tax by $75,000. Advice is welcome from country club friends who have no fiduciary responsibility of the business. Ah, the Mar-a-Lago experts on the VA, delegation of responsibility is a low priority, that is, overturning decisions of subordinates, such as the Secretaries of Defense, the Treasury, and Education. Real advice is purely operational, that is, revolving door of Trump attorneys reliance on over-the-hill Mayor Giuliani, and government itself is viewed as the enemy, deep state. Attacks on the FBI, the intelligence community, expertise in general. What have I omitted? Really? Can you think of other ways in which this administration is like a sole proprietorship, or does a different analogy work better? I really enjoyed that. Wow. Very nice. Yeah, it was good. Excellent. Thank you, Gene. I can't think of another one. I haven't met you before, but I like to. That was very well stated. Well, it's true. It's right on. It's nailing the situation. It's like a sole proprietorship, and it's a one-man band, and nobody else matters but him, you know, part of the narcissistic experience. But let's talk about this week, okay? I guess the big thing we need to react to, the Mueller report. Right. So are you happy with that? No, not even in the least bit. And how someone could go take almost 400 pages we know now, just today. 300. 300. It came out today that it's almost 400 pages. Okay. That's what Barr put out. And he said that he might be able to give us the report heavily redacted in mid-April. And he's available to sit in front of the, what you call it, on May 1st and 2nd. Those are his only dates. The House Committee. Yeah, the House Committee. Thank you. This is the thing. He took a 400, almost 400 page report, and in 48 hours, he wrote a four-page report out of it, and we're supposed to just accept it. And even in his report, the whole thing is that he did not say that he had been completely exonerated. It's the opposite, yet, you know, minutes later, after he's, you know, made this four-page available, more like an opinion piece, if you ask me. Oh, yeah. Well, let's unpack that a little bit. Right. You know, you got, first, you got to report itself, what Mueller did. And Mueller is not my hero. I want to be clear about that. I think he did the country a huge disservice. Report itself, I like your thought about that. And I like your thought about the bar, you know, the bar letter. And, of course, you know, we should also talk about the reactions of Democrats and Republicans to what has happened. Well, let me just hit just briefly on the reactions, because let's go back in time. I like to do that sometimes. That's what we do here in Trump Week. Let's go back in time to a time where there was a special prosecutor named Kim Starr, who was investigating a certain president by the name of Bill Clinton. Now, in true, would the Republicans been happy at that time if Kim Starr would have produced his report? It would have gone to Janet Reno. And Janet Reno wrote a four-page summary and saying, all is fine. There's no prosecution. There's no need for any further warrant of impeachment. What was the reaction from the Republicans in at that time? OK, so let's have the Republicans put themselves in our shoes, the Democrats shoes, and say, well, is this hypocrisy or is it not? Complete politicization. Yes. What it is. It's the height of hypocrisy. You know, I really wonder what Kim Starr was thinking of. Because he spends how long and how, forget about the money. The money goes with the part of it all this time. And we get all these indictments and prosecutions and jail terms. But nothing happened vis-à-vis Donald Trump. I mean, really, we have so much information about what he did wrong and about all the wrong things that are happening just one inch away from him. And what? Nothing? No collusion, no obstruction. Give me a break. And I think maybe there is evidence of collusion and obstruction, except that it's in the report and it has to be reviewed. But what the Republicans are saying, there's a whole bunch of Republicans now that are speaking on TV saying, well, I guess it's over. And it's complete exoneration. We haven't seen the damn report. How about it, guys? And they're standing in the way of showing us the report. I don't like to use sports analogies, but it's kind of like that last call out of the end of a football game. And it's a questionable call. But the coach says, get out on the field and pretend like the game's over, OK? They have done that exactly. And it is the victory dance and keep dancing and keep claiming the victories. And do not cave in on that, just pretend the game is over. Well, it's not over. Yeah, I'm not happy with Mueller. Mueller should have anticipated this. I agree. He should have anticipated his report would not be released. It would be misinterpreted, intentionally misinterpreted. There would be lies from the Republican camp about it. Couldn't he do better? He has done a huge service. He has effectively helped Trump. I agree. Well, I'm going to put this in neutral. I don't know what he said. We don't know what he said. Maybe his comments and his reports are as damning as we suspect that they would be. We just don't know to what degree a Trinidad General Barr has basically massaged the sentences and massaged the pages, the 300 over 300 pages. What did have been wrong for him after the Barr wrote the report letter? Mueller to say, you know, that's not exactly what I meant to say. That's not exactly what I said. And he's taking liberties. And so I just, you guys, you shouldn't make any decisions about this until you read the thing. Right. He didn't say that. No. And the silence is deafening from him, as it has been. I agree. He's not a hero in my mind. He's created a situation where it went the wrong way. But he went the same. Now Trump is talking about the people who started the investigation are traitors. And should be prosecuted for treason. Are you kidding me? They interviewed Comey and Comey even said, listen, you know, and he made this great analogy. He said if it went, Obama was president when he was running for president. If the Saudis came in and said, we want to help you win. And he said, OK, great. And he didn't do anything about it and didn't report it. And then as they went along, continued to help. Would it not be completely expected to have some kind of investigation into that? What would the Republicans have said then? They would have been clamoring. The politicized thing from the beginning. Right. And so that's what has been happening so that it's like Republicans against Democrats when in reality we should be Americans looking at the fact that our president has. He's the one who's done the treasonous things in my mind. And he's such a projectionist. And everything he says is projection. I'm thinking, oh, man, those fingers are pointed right straight back at himself on this calling them treason. That's not the way the country sees it. Right now, you know, Mueller has left this big vacuum and Trump is marching right through it. And, you know, I make a prediction. We're not going to see that report just like we didn't see the tax returns. Just like so many things have been kept secret from us. And the press, you know, he hasn't had a press. He speaks only to his supporters, you know, in faraway states as part of his campaign. But what, you know, what we have here is just shrinking down of the information that is available to the press and thus to the public. You guys feel we're going to see that report? April Schmapperel. I don't, you think we're going to see it? I do. I think you just can't hide that report. And if they do, then, of course, Bob Mueller will be subpoenaed and he will testify to what the contents of the report is coming from the lips of special prosecutor Mueller. I sure hope so. Come on, you guys. This is not going to be put under a rug and reality is going to be reality. It may take longer than suspected. The subpoenas may get caught up in the court system, but it's going to happen. Well, I think it will be so redacted that it won't do us any good anyway. That's my think. You guys are going to take out anything that has anything that's going to be redaction after redaction after redaction. We won't. Or omission because of privilege or grand juries and that's it. Amy. Obashar. Obashar. I was on television last night in C-SPAN and she said, you know, what's the problem? Grand jury testimony has been revealed to the public before and to Congress. What's the problem? You know, what are they coming up with? Getting in a storm. And indeed, this goes to our continuing discussion of distraction. And if we're going to look at this week, we have to look at this week as a week in which Trump, you know, charged the guys who started the investigation with treason. But then he moved on to other things. Journalists. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Journalists or treason, right? That doesn't sound like the First Amendment to me. But anyway, he's done a lot of things, a lot of news this week, and the idea is let's get this behind us. Let's claim victory and get on to other things. We've got to distract the people. We've got to fool all the people all the time, Yui Long, right? So what kind of distractions have we seen? Well, his campaign stop, you know, basically pontificating the fact that he's innocent, always was innocent, and anyone who claimed otherwise is treasonous. You know, I really got an earful when I was, when he was talking about the journalist, and no more sudden the crowd broke out into a choir of lock them up, lock them up. Now. Oh my God. You know, am I looking at something in 1938 in Italy with Mussolini at the podium? I mean, what, what are these times? And you're hearing people that lock up the journalist, lock up, you know, I mean, this is crazy. Same thing that he did with Hillary, you know, but to do that, is it that's like saying lock up the Constitution. He's running it not only as a sole proprietorship, but out of his, his pocket. The only thing I was missing from that, your brother's statement was the fact that he has circumvented Congress on this national emergency. That is a sole proprietorship act. And I'm completely dismayed and dumbfounded that Congress has allowed this to happen. They did not override his veto. And he's taking money from the military and the military says, well, he's a commander in chief. So we got to do it. You know, the loyalty is with him and it's getting more and more problematic as to his ability to pull these things off with outrageous things. And everybody goes along and the Republicans, their names will go down in history. Every one of them for undermining the Constitution and our democracy is happening right in front of our eyes. Very soon. Is it happening to a point where it's so often that it's just everyone's immune to it and it just passes their field of vision and it allows it to occur? Yes. I think we're getting used to a new normal thing. Some of the things that he's doing today, if he had done that in, say, in January of 2017, right after Obama, who was in a relative sense, he was a wonderful gentleman that would have been outrageous in January 2017. But now, little by little, outrage becomes the new normal and we get fatigued over outrage. You've been desensitized to all the lies. Desensitized over outrage. Right. So what's on your list? Well, did anyone have any reaction to calling Adam Schiff out and basically demanding that he resign? Did that surprise anybody? Certainly didn't surprise me. Well, he wants Schiff out of there. Schiff is effective. Schiff, I get Schiff emails every day, including today, where he said, don't worry. I'm not going to be intimidated. And I don't want him to be intimidated. He's a hero. He said something I think all Americans, I don't care what side you're on, needs to pay attention to. And that is, he said, but I do not think the conduct, criminal or not, is okay. And the day America thinks it's okay is the day we've lost our way. I like the way before that he had said, you might think it's okay that he went to this whole list of you may think it's okay. And then he talks about how Russia offered dirt on their opponent. You think that's okay that the president's son said he'd love it and didn't call the FBI or anyone else to report it. And you might think it's okay that that son took that meeting. You might think it's okay that Manafort, with lots of experience, with campaigns, took that meeting. You might be, I think it's okay that the son-in-law took that meeting and then that they lied about the meeting. And you might say, well, that's just what you need to win. You might think it's okay, but I don't. I think it's unethical, immoral, unpatriotic. And yes, I think it's corrupt. I love that quote when he said that. Well, I agree with him absolutely. We've got to have a voice like that. We must have him speak. How can anyone think it's okay? And to try to squash him is really to admit the wrongdoing in a sense. Right, exactly. Well, okay, that gets my nerves going. I'll take a short break so I can recover and we'll come back and we'll go to the rest of these points all in one week. All in one week. It's like we were falling off the pedestal of democracy every week further and further, we'll be right back. Hey, loha, my name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests, I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your coworkers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because security matters, aloha. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 AM, aloha. Okay, we're back, we're not feeling any better. Are you nervous? Not good. Minor shot on this deal. So, okay, so, you know, meanwhile, I mean, it's like every day all the articles about him in every paper, and they're all bad news for us. I mean, the country in general. And he's running and he's raising money and there are people deporting his craziness. So what's happened in terms of like the social safety net? I worry about that so much because it's clear. You know, if you connect the dots and we should on this show, connect the dots and what he's about is taking away the social safety net. What are you guys on your own? And you can die on the street with me, it's okay. What's happening here? So how has he advanced that? And how does that affect the conversation? You know, it's a shattering distraction for one thing. And it came out with it the day after that Barr came out with his letter. It's like, we're done, we can move on, let's look over here now. I'm going to gut the ACA, I'm going to ask the courts actually to gut the ACA. And I'm going to gut, I'm going to gut Medicaid, Medicare, and all these other programs that are our social programs. Hopefully it was my health insurance, if he exceeds in this, it's terrifying. Well, millions of people lose their health insurance. And I was going to say in 200 probably million other people is what they're saying. Not to say that already millions of people have lost their health insurance because he's been systematically dumping on Obamacare. If he hadn't done that, we would have many more people insured in this country, many more people healthy. To say nothing about the effect on national morale. I don't know when you're going to be covered or not covered. You know what they're going to do and repeal it without a plan. My God, that's hideous. That's what really gets me. Okay, so let's go to the sole proprietorship concept. Model, yeah, right. He's clearly acting as a sole proprietorship because many, many voters that are Republican rely on their insurance. And a lot of it is Obamacare insurance or Medicare insurance. So I think Republicans in Congress are going, what are you doing? What is this a strategy that you haven't told us about because it's making no sense? So our sole proprietor president is making some really crazy statements about gutting completely the insurance and Medicare. Well, I think what was behind that for him is he saw the Democrats win on healthcare this last time. That was their big thing and that's what they really want on. So he's like, well, I want that now. I'm going to take it and he says that the Republicans are going to be the party of healthcare and health insurance. Yes, what? What is it? He doesn't have one. We don't know. We never knew. So how can you give confidence to the country that I'm going to gut something that you and your family need each and every day? Yet I don't have anything in the wings to tell you what my plan is. But we're going to give you the best one ever. And he said, then there's talk about a tax increase on the middle class next year. Right. It was only like what a year ago that we had this phantasmagoric reduction of taxes without any plan and was only temporary. What they did was they conned us, they deceived us into believing in that. And now they're going to zip up the taxes again. You go to any watering hole and you sit at the bar long enough and it's tax season right now. April 15th, I believe, is the deadline. That's right. This is the end of March. Right now, conversations are taking place going, I didn't get nearly as much in my refund as I thought I was going to. It was a scam. And those words and those comments are taking place right now across America. I hope so. The other scam is the tariffs. All these people in the Midwest who have their pro-tas sitting in silos and can't sell it, they're really stuck. And I remember an NPR discussion of this sometime in the fall, last fall, where the farmer said, well, he must have some method about this. So we'll support him. We'll continue to support him and hope that he can break China's back on this. And they'll come around. Well, they haven't come around. And we haven't broken China's back. Instead, we broke the back of the farmers. And we're still breaking the back of the farmers. You're going out of business. And so how long is this going to last before they say enough? You guys, you're conning me. Why are you ruining my business this way? It's not for a good reason. I mean, you can't fool all the people all the time. Louis Long, Demagogue at Louisiana right in the 30s. People have got to figure out that these promises aren't being kept. They've got to figure out that the real false news is from. I hope they do, but he's trying to continue to fool them. Wouldn't be the first time voters voted against their own economic interests in lieu of social interests. I can think of Ronald Reagan and many, many loyal followers that voted for him, although in the end, the economy was hurtful to them. But they voted for him anyway. So this isn't the first time we're going to see this. And it probably won't be the last. Well, the problem is he's going to, he is attacking the Democrats like Adam Schiff and others and attacking anybody who, you know, who we can, who's adverse to him. And that is very troubling because it's all leading up to the election. And people, you know, are getting fooled. They're still fooled. I don't know, I don't have a confident feeling about the ability of the Democrats to come together and offer a good candidate. And that candidate would, you know, would pull it off because Trump is going to be attacking them like crazy every day. Well, we have these concerns before the midterm election. And ultimately, 40 seats went to the Democratic side. I still have faith that the voter will look at the pros and cons of this administration and sanity will prevail. I worry about the trustworthiness of our voting. So I think he might just cheat. I mean, he cheats at everything. So why wouldn't he cheat at this? It makes no sense that he wouldn't cheat to win. So how would he do it and how would we protect ourselves from it? That's what we're doing. That's the role of the media. Right? There you go. The media is under attack. It's never before. Never before. He's really letting go of the media now because he knows they stand between him and reelection. And if they are able to tell the truth and call his lies, that'll hurt him. So he wants to be credibleized in every way. At the same time, he's building Fox News as he's never had as his official state organ. All these things sound like Germany in the 30s, honestly. They do. And you know, before the bar letter was released, suddenly there was a shift in all of the Trump family, and Trump himself, coming out with, oh, I don't care if they show the whole thing. Suddenly, they didn't mind if the report came out. And I thought, that's an off the odd shift right now. And I thought, they must know. They already know what's in it. So Barr, or Whitaker, or one of them has already given them what's in it anyway, which is why they're suddenly changing their tune. And I noticed it about a week before, and then all of a sudden, you're there again. Well, they said they were going to look at it before to make sure there was nothing that was confidential, privileged information between the president. They said they were going to look at it. He never answered the question. No, he did not. Quite remarkable. So just as my brother said, he's not handed. He's not honest. He's not telling us anything. He's not, and he's forcing, he's trying hard to force the press not to tell us anything. So what do you think about the fact that Mueller didn't call him in? Did not subpoena him? I don't understand that. I don't understand that either. Mueller is not my hero. I didn't understand that at all. All this stuff for 22 months, and it's what I call a nothing burger, really. I mean, he could have at least, you know, made a statement that there was some kind of shenanigans here, but he didn't do that. I don't know why you guys are saying nothing burger. He clenched it on the main question. I don't know why you're saying nothing burger. We could not conclude one way or the other about obstruction of justice. That is a huge, Richard Nixon went down for obstruction of justice. What do you mean we could not conclude? Right, so that means we still have to, so the report needs to be read and reviewed. By the attorney general who works for Trump. No, this is what the oversight committee is for. This is what the House of Representatives is for. I think Mueller was hoping that it would go to Congress right away. I think he didn't really, I think he's, well, we know that he's friends with Barr. We know they're friends because Barr talked about the fact that they have barbecues together. Their families are friends even. And so I wonder if he put more faith in Barr than maybe he should have because they know each other? I don't know because that doesn't make sense to me that he wouldn't put things more, forward a little bit more forcefully. You don't realize how powerful a president is, any president. So, you know, the other thing is that we have the Southern District, or rather the Manhattan men, and the prosecuting attorney. It's not a federal jurisdiction. And apparently some of the information in the report has gone where Mueller did not want to address it. He sent it to other jurisdictions, state jurisdictions, which are not subject to the president's ardent authority. So there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. That's the question. That's an ongoing question for us here at Trump Week. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? You guys may be more optimistic than I am. But it's okay. He's more optimistic than I am. You've got to put faith in our system, and I'm not hearing that from you guys. Sorry, right now I don't. Because the tactic system has ever had. I understand it's been under attack, but the system will prevail. This report is going to see light of day. And if you do not believe that, then you've got to have more faith. Right. And the Republicans want you to have this discouragement. They want you to move on. Let's not do that. I'm not moving on. I just don't have faith in the fact that we will really get an unredacted report. There'll be redactions? Of course they will be. Well, some, yes, is one thing, but I think when it's over-redacted and things are without. I guarantee there'll be 27 distractions between now and then April 15th or whatever that. Whatever, how much of a deadline it is. The middle of April. I would not take a bet against that. All right, so what's going to happen next week? Any predictions? We're going to talk about the education budget and everything that's happening next week. There's a lot of stuff Betsy DeVos came out with. First she's going to gut all of the money from Special Olympics. And then Trump comes out and says, oh no, no, I've told my people, my people. I've told my people that we are not going to take the money from Special Olympics. Yeah, first he told them this, then he told them that. Next week, they're going to find Betsy DeVos underneath the bus that he threw her under. Yeah, so. Would that mean she can't wreck any more education stuff? That'd be okay. Oh, that's sad. What else is going to come up next week? Give me some wild predictions. We're going to hear all more about the report. That's a wild prediction. I hope so. I think it's going to work. I'm going to hear more about what the Democrats are doing in the House. Yeah, I hope. I think it's going to be more attacks on Democrats. I think he's going to up the ante for his attacks. I mean, it wasn't but like hours after he had put out the tweet that shifts should resign, when the Republicans in that committee meeting, a public meeting no less, called for his resignation saying that he can't be trusted anymore. Yeah, well, you wonder when they're going to crack, but they really haven't cracked yet. Are you guys? But government and politics is a rough and tumble business. And it's high time for the Democrats to realize that it is a rough and tumble business. And when they go low, you don't always necessarily go high. You've got to get in there and fight. And I see Adam Schiff, one of those people saying, I'm not going high. I'm sticking out for the ethics and morals of our democracy, and I'm sticking to it. I cried when I heard him say that. You remember Alex the talk, Bill? He was a philosopher in the 18th century. He said what he said, and he put this word on it. He says, remember, the democracy is tumultuous. But you know what? He never contemplated this. Next week then, is it a date, you guys? It's a date. Next week, we'll see what happens. All right, Cynthia Sinclair and Tim Appichella. I so enjoy this discussion. Thank you, Jay. Thanks for having us. Aloha. Aloha. Aloha.