 It's Wednesday, it's 11 o'clock. It's September the 15th, 2021. Welcome to What Now America. I'm your host, Tim Appichella. And I would like to start off with a title of this one called Rig Election, GOP's Mainstay Slogan. Remember 2016, this thing called the presidential election, Donald Trump. And well before the election with Hillary Clinton, he was proclaiming that the election was already riddled with fraud and inconsistencies. And I think he was doing that because he knew he was gonna, in his mind, he was gonna lose the election. So he started claiming foul months and months before the election day. And then a funny thing happened. He won. Well, it wasn't that funny, but he did win. And the bottom line is he still clung to the fact that he'd been robbed because the poplar vote was in favor of Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump. So Donald Trump created what is called the Voter Fraud Commission. And that commission from May, 2017 to January, 2018 investigated Donald Trump's claims that dead people rose from the grave and voted in favor of Hillary Clinton. All sorts of crazy conspiracy theories. The Secretary of State for Kansas, Chris Kovash, completed the report and said there was glaringly empty of any fraud. So that was pretty much the end of it. Then we go to 2020, the presidential election. And as we all recall, much before the election, Donald Trump was claiming that there's no way he could lose. And if he did, it was gonna be riddled with fraud. And he was particularly taking issue with ballots. And then on July the 30th, 2020, he tweeted that the 2020 election will be the most inaccurate fraudulent election in history. And then a funny thing happened. He lost. Fast forward to Monday of this week, where Larry Elder, a candidate trying to unseat Governor Newsom of the California recall election, had set up websites that were pointing towards fraud and to report fraud. And then he himself said that the fraud had been detected. And this website was called Stop California Fraud. So what we're seeing a pattern here now is the big live course, but also we're seeing a pattern that every time there's an election, the GOP starts crying foul and fraud before the elections even held. And I think they believe it. To quote from Seinfeld, an episode where Costanza is giving Jerry some advice. He goes, remember Jerry, if you believe it, it's not a lie. And I think that's exactly where the GOP is. So without further ado, let's dive head first into this topic. With me today is Jay Fidel, Winston Welch and on assignment is Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning everyone. Morning, Tim. Nice to be here. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Hey, you know, Jay, we're starting to see a pattern now emerge. It's not with this with Donald Trump and his acolytes supporting the big lie that the election was stolen from him. We're starting to see other candidates do that now in their elections. And Larry Elder comes to mind because that was the most recent. Will this pattern of claiming fraud serve the GOP in any way? Or is it a matter that they're just trying to imitate Donald Trump to satisfy would-be voters? The whole subject wraps around so many issues. I am so glad you brought up the 2016 campaign. And I remember how shocked I was when a reporter asked him, are you going to accept the results of this election? And he said, only if I win, only if I win. So let me get this right now. There's going to be fraud if the other guy wins, but not if you win. I mean, and that is so obnoxious. It's not only- He did the same thing in 2020. He said, there's no way I could lose. And if I do, it's fraudulent. But if I win, it's not fraudulent. And then we've had all these commissions and they found no fraud. So what you get is a guy, and this is out of his real estate practice in Queens. This is out of the sharp dealings that he's had all his life. You always keep your options open. You never agree with anything. It's never a win-win, it's always a win-lose and you must win. It's a business approach, but in the lowest possible form of business you could imagine. That's where he gets it from. But it has an extraordinarily damaging effect on our society, on our democracy, to not accept the results of an election. When you have no reason whatsoever to question those results, it's really horrible. You know, what could be more important than the peaceful transfer of power? What could be more important than voting? What could, you know, free and fair voting? What could be more important than accepting the results of a vote? This guy is a destroyer. And what is, to answer your question more fully, what has happened is he's created this virus of lies, a pandemic of lies. And this is one of them. Then he's got the whole Republican party or at least the new Republican party. Republican party created in his image, all of whom are his acolytes and follow his pathology, he's got them all accepting this lie that they never lose elections. They always win elections. And if they lose, they come up with these phony baloney broad stories. What's interesting is the people were speculating a few months ago when he first raised a big lie, you know, is this going to pervade the Republican party? Are they going to raise this again and again? Are we going to see the Republican party try this ridiculous strategy in future elections? And nobody knew. I don't think it happened really, although maybe there was some noise about that and the Georgia senatorial race races back in January, but I don't think it was really that much of a threat. It was a possibility, but not a threat. Now we have Eldon and he's a Republican, he's a Trumper, he's going to do everything that Trump has done. He's going to accept Trump's strategies, lock, stock and barrel, and he trots this out. And you know, when he did, my reaction, I'm biased about this, but my reaction was, is he kidding? Is anybody going to believe this? It is so obviously a copycat maneuver. Nobody would believe this. You know, to say that if I win, there's no fraud, but if you win, it's all fraud and say it in advance like that. Well, California is a fairly educated, fairly progressive state. And I think people saw that for what it was. Even Republicans saw that for what it was and he did not make traction with that argument. I think he lost points, certainly with the Democrats in California and with probably a lot of Republicans too. So my answer to your question is no, it didn't help him that much. It probably hurt him because it's obviously irrational and unacceptable. It's part of the big lie. But the question is not so much California. It's other states, it's other Republican parties, it's other Republican candidates. So although I feel he didn't make traction in California, there are others who will try it again and they may make traction. Okay, well here's a follow up to that because you mentioned Georgia, I think. And Donald Trump was not well liked for claiming a fraud of the Georgia election before it took place. In fact, they say that was a contributory to the fact that GOP voters just stayed in their lazy-boy chairs. They didn't get up and vote. They were discouraged because they listened to Donald Trump and they thought it was fraudulent. So why bother? This may have happened to Larry Elder in California but it's certainly a valid point that if you're gonna call something fraud, what's the use? Why get engaged? The whole system quote unquote is rigged. And so therefore I sit home and protest in silence. How is that gonna serve the GOP party? Well, I suppose it depends on which Republican you're talking to, which voter you're talking to. Some of them may have been discouraged by that and not gone to the polls. But others may have said, wow, we better do something. We better take them at face value. We wanna beat the fraud. So we're gonna go and vote. It's hard to say that there's a tilt either on one side of that question or another. I rather think though that the Republican acolytes to use your word are gonna accept what he has to say and they're gonna get on board and they're gonna vote to win. This is all a ballgame in which you cheat and they're gonna do everything they can to elect Republican candidates. So I think we'll see it again. And I think the Democrats may get discouraged and not vote, but the Republicans will vote. They'll see it as a ballgame that you can cheat in and it will have an effect in some places, some candidates. All right, thank you, Jay. Hey, Wednesday, I'm gonna throw some numbers at you. So hang on here. A poll by SSRS, the CNN poll, found some interesting numbers and that is 78% of the GOP, 78% of the GOP feel that Biden did not win properly, that he is an illegitimate president of the United States. 54% of the same GOP say there's solid evidence to prove it, yet there is none. And there hasn't been any but they still cling to the fact that there's solid demonstrated evidence that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. So that's some of the background. Other numbers, 56% believe in the country, believe that democracy is under attack, where 51% believe that in a future election, there will be an overturn of the results because one party didn't win. These are pretty shocking statistics. Now a poll is a poll, but your thoughts about these numbers and what it seems to indicate about future elections and the pessimism that is demonstrated by this poll. Well, we've taken it on the chin a little bit the last few decades here, but you think back to Bush v. Gore in 2000, there was no clear answer for a while and people remained pretty calm when you think about that relatively, they thought, well, I want my fellow to get in, but if the other fellow gets in, we'll concede magnanimously. And they had their fleet of lawyers, of course, you remember the hanging chat and the fellow looking at the hanging chat, that seems so idealic and calm and rather quaint by today's standards where, like Jay said, when you have presumptively said that any election where I don't win is fraudulent, you're completely dismissing the system and that is where the real danger lies. It's not on the platform or what they are believing. Should we have higher taxes? Should we have more access to abortion or less? Should we legalize pot or increase the debt? None of those things matter. It's all about that there's the big lie that our elections are fraudulent and when you have that presumption going into that by any percentage of the population that matters, you're really dealing with some danger there and that's where I think we need to focus is on election security, but we've had the most secure elections that we ever had in 2020, but if you don't believe that that took place and you believe in fact that that was fraudulent because you're getting your news source from one or two news sources that's a self-referring feedback loop despite all evidence to the contrary, it really doesn't matter what the truth is. It's like Kellyanne Conway said, it's alternative truth or alternative facts or whatever nonsense she said, because that's where we're at. One thing that I saw yesterday that I was particularly taken with when Governor Newsom, it was clear that he had defeated the recall for him and when he got up there, he really was speaking to all of Americans and I think actually what I saw was a preemptive sort of stump speech for 2024 or beyond and he was feeling very presidential to me honestly where he was saying democracy is, he said we can't have this nonsense where every election before we even have it is presumed to be faked by one side because it's not. He said democracy is not a football you can toss around like this. He said it is like an antique vase or vase that if you're holding it and if it drops, it gets shattered and you can't put Humpty Dumpty together again like that. You can't put that vase together again. So we need to go back to the basic principles that our elections are sound, that they are also fair, that they're secure and since we have two party system, we need to have the buy-in of both parties of this because otherwise we will have a constant battle of this idea like you just mentioned in those polls that these are always, that whoever is in charge is an illegitimate leader. I don't think that the liberals or Democrats felt that Trump was unfairly elected, were they destroyed and crestfallen and horrified? Yes, but did they accept it that it was a real election? Yes, they did and Hillary Clinton did too and she didn't go in saying, oh, well, if I don't win, then it's fake. But the opposite is not true. So we have to really work on fundamental civics, training and education for our adult population as well as the kids coming up. You have to add a point to that that I think we have to have in the conversation here is that we believe that Trump, if you look at it as to the vote in the electoral college and all that legitimately won in 2016, I don't actually just between us, us boys. I don't really think he handled that in a fair manner. I think he brought Vladimir Putin in. I think he did all kinds of unfair stuff, which was never really raised and people as you say Winston, they accepted the result but Trump was gaming the system all the way through. He was gaming the system as much as he could. And he claims to have received all these votes including a majority of the popular vote. I think he was manipulating that in every way he could. Hey Jay, they had a Department of Justice investigation over the involvement of Vladimir Putin in 2016. And a lot of those results were pushed to the side because they were looking at other issues for impeachment. But remember Mueller basically brushed aside all credible evidence pointing to what you just said. And it was basically set aside and then post-mortem autopsy was reported. And yes, Russia had been involved in the distraction and the influence on social media for Donald Trump. So you're absolutely correct. It did occur, absolutely. So Winston, I just have one comment. You mentioned rightly so the election of the year 2000 and what kept a lid on it I think was Al Gore graciously accepted loss. And I think that's the key, that's the crux that the standard bearer of the party who's running for office acknowledges that it's a win-loss situation. There's no do-overs unless there is fraud and he was willing to accept that loss. And I think that lowered the temperature nationwide quite a bit, but even days following there were a lot of angry Democrats. I recall it very distinctly, but had it not been for Al Gore to say, I accept this defeat and we'll move on. He said he accepted it in order to preserve national stability. Correct. At the very policy point we're discussing today he did it for the country. He did it for the country. Which leads me to my question to you Jay is will this strategy serve the GOP in 2022? If this continues, will this work or will it drive away GOP voters and will it shove the independence away from GOP ideals and policies? I wish I could say yes, but I really don't think so. And maybe somebody will be more optimistic than I am about this, but I feel that the notion of truth, the notion of democracy, the notion of fair voting it has been lost in this country. And there's an enormous number of people who don't care about these things anymore. They only care about winning and supporting their cult leader Donald Trump or other cult leaders if any appear. And we've lost touch with the idea of diversity. We've lost touch with morality if you will and democracy in general. I don't think this is going to change their minds. They're probably gonna do it again. And other things, they are also doing other things like stopping voting rights legislation and doing state voting rights legislation that is ridiculous and taking all these draconian steps against fairness, against voting, against minorities. Why would this, why would what happened here affect them? I think they'll do it again. And worse, I think they've learned by their own success. In fact, I would add one other point is they'll just try to, didn't they? And he had some traction with some voters. After all, he did get some voters. I don't know how much that was depended on his remarkable statement over election fraud. But I think in fact, he warmed up the issue the later and it will come back. I think our voting system, our democracy is broken. And I would really like to be in a brain session with you guys at some point to figure out what if anything can be done? Because right now, despite this lot at the end of the tunnel voting rights bill that was suggested yesterday, we're compromised with the progressives in the House. I really, I don't think any voting rights bill is gonna pass and therefore we're gonna be stuck with the bills in these Republican states that are dedicated to try to stop people from voting. Together with all the other tricks the Republicans are playing, I would not be optimistic about a fair vote next time. Okay, Jay, you took the question right out of my mouth because that's what I wanted to ask Winston. And that is this new bill introduced in the Senate that has Joe Manchin's signature on it or his footprints are on it. He was part of the nine senators that got together over the summer to say, how can we work out a voting rights bill that everyone can live with? And it's now up to Joe Manchin to get 10 Republicans to get on board with the bill. And of course, yesterday, Senator Mitch McConnell said there won't be one GOP voting for it. Is this a setup? Is this laying the groundwork for Joe Manchin to agree to modify the filibuster? Well, we'll see, won't we? This is what we've been waiting for, is when he had his time to get his coalition of the 10 or the 20 willing and say, we need to have bipartisan legislation to push this through. And once that, he found out that that wasn't there because their top priority is just not having a Democrat in the White House. And he could see that rather than just for what it is, then this is his time to move forward and say, this is more important than having a bipartisanship because there won't be anything left if we don't do this. I can understand why he has some reticence in that, but we're also at a point now where if we don't do something that ensures that people do have the ability to have free and valid elections, people are gonna be so disenfranchised, not that they already aren't, but let's face it, there's a demographic time bomb going off in this country. You can only suppress this for so long and people are sick of it. They don't want another four years of what we just suffered through. They see the result of that and if they don't, well, just take a look around, are you better? Are you happier than you were four years ago or your relationship's better with your family and your friends and I think most people could say, well, I don't talk to this person or that person anymore and we got divided, but one thing that I thought Governor Newsom did yesterday was he said, look, all this division, so much of it is just fake. That's the real fake news here. He said, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, we have so much more in common, so much more in common than we don't and that is the message that he needs to hammer home, that every governor needs to hammer home, that every politician that wants to bring, that, you know, who was it that asked, do you hate the other party more, do you hate America more than you hate the other party or something to that effect? Like what's the end goal here is is, you know, at the end of the day, we're Americans and we need to support the best ideas coming forward in a fair and reasonable manner. And when you look at how our elections are carried out, you know, with the manipulation of Facebook and that whole, you know, psycho drama that they pulled and was it with the Russians? Probably, but Facebook didn't need much help in that with the Cambridge Analytica. They were doing that on their own and the vast sums of money that are poured into politics from special interests, it's hard for the average Joe not to feel a little bit manipulated or more, but I think Governor Newsom was right. And I felt that also strangely in, this was the 20th anniversary of 911 this year and I just felt like there was something different about, you know, and we commemorate these anniversaries for Pearl Harbor and significant events in this nation and rightly so, but 911, if you think about it, I think it wasn't George Bush's approval rating 92% or something right after those attacks. This is when Americans felt American. They felt United, they felt together, they felt our basic sense of values and our nation were attacked, which they were. And we came together in that moment and realized this is more important. What we have here is precious and unique and worth seeing. That was 20 years ago, Winston, everything has changed. And that's why it was so poignant this time to look back now and say, wow, we really took some wrong terms here in the last 20 years so that we're so divided now that we look back at that time with the sense of nostalgia and almost a longing for the, well, definitely, for that unity that was there. It might have been false and it might have been... No, I agree with you, Winston. We took a reflective moment in time on this 20th anniversary than I recall years prior. America did kind of look inward and say, how did we get here in the last 20 years? And I will say that a lot of the news agencies did a great job highlighting some of these points. And more important is how do we get back to something where we're not, of course, this is not a nation where we have, surest ideas where we're all lockstep. We're not North Korea. We're not the Soviet Union. We're a land of diversity and diverse ideas where the best ones should come to the top. And that's what we're about, is a competition for the best ideas, but we have to have a level playing field for that to happen, whether it's business or in politics or whatever it is. This is, that's one of the great things about America. So I am fully on America now, especially after the 911 reflection of 20 years, I just felt like, wow, that was actually a really powerful look back and to say, and that's probably fed into Governor Newsom's win, is because we looked back and said, we don't need every single election to be recalled and counted and doubted and this is nonsense. This is fake. And he called out Donald Trump specifically on this and said, he didn't say stop it, but he was just saying, this is where this is coming from and we need to stop it collectively. I agree with you Winston. I think he is a good candidate for president. He really presented well. He's got vitality. He's got it together. And I agree with you also on this very important point that the celebration of 911 actually created at least an echo of togetherness for a lot of people and they felt very patriotic watching the media, as you say Tim, watching the media over a week period or so. On the other hand- It was that in combination with Jake Tapper's special documentary about Afghanistan the 20 years, interviewing every general that was involved in that war and their candid opinions about how things went wrong. So between the 911 remembrance and this Afghanistan look back, I think a lot of people said, wow, how did we get here? But the question remains is whether that's gonna stick around. It didn't stick around after 911. And my thought is it's not gonna, it was a great nostalgic experience, a retrospective on togetherness for a while, but not for a long time. Sorry. And we can have these aspirational thoughts about how we have to come back together again. That's nostalgia too. Bottom line is the vote. Bottom line is what happens on the 18th coming up this Saturday in Washington. Bottom line is what happens to all the 70 million acolytes that Trump has somehow gathered. Not clear to me they're going away. Not clear to me they are of the same mind. Not clear to me that Congress, especially in view of McConnell's statement there the other day, Congress is ever gonna pass a voting rights act. So we can be aspirational, we can be idealistic, but wow, there's gotta be some measures taken. I don't know what in order to reverse a trend that is totally destructive. Trump set these things in motion. He found vulnerabilities in the country. He exacerbated them. He laid in booby traps. We've seen that in news recently too, haven't we? Booby traps that would blow up after he left office, many of them. And now what's left? Are we gonna be able to survive? All right, thank you Jay. Winston, we're out of time, but I wanna get last word from you. And also unfortunately we didn't have time to cover some of the news events regarding Bob Woodward's and Jim Acosta's book Peril. Some fascinating, scary things that have come out of that and maybe we have time soon to discuss a dedicated show just for those revelations coming out of that book. Anyway, you have the last word Winston. Absolutely, so folks, if you're watching, read the excerpts about this book where you have the top general in the United States basically saying that he was certain that Trump had gone to a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election where you have the joint chiefs of staff issuing a statement that the U.S. military will not be adjudicating the election. This was a bizarre and sad time in American history. No one's saying that about our current President Biden. He may have stumbled on Afghanistan but how do you extricate yourself from that situation? I never thought of it. We gotta talk about that one next week but what I wanna say, Jay, is also where's the aspirations? We have to have lofty aspirations where there is no vision, the people perish and we have to build our castles and we have to put our castles in the sky and build our foundations. All right, hey, you know, Winston, I knew we could count on you in the end, so good. Thank you, love that. See, Jay, there is optimism. Nice work, Winston. Nice work, Winston. All right, we've run out of time and I'd like to thank Jay Fiedel, Winston Welch. Thank you for joining us on What Now, America. Please join us next week at 11 o'clock Wednesday. I'm Tim Appichelle, your host and I hope to see you again. Aloha.