 Okay, we're back at 11 o'clock on a given Friday with Trump Week. And by the way, I'm going to make one thing totally clear. It's spelled W-E-E-K. One of these days, maybe we can play on the choice of words there, it could be W-E-A-K. I'm looking forward to that time. But that's another show, Tim Appichella, Cynthia Sinclair, here we are, Trump Week. So okay, the first thing is the Impeachment Reality Show. Where are we, Tim? Well, how do we get to the Impeachment Reality Show? And I think it got a big push forward with Robert Mueller's nine minute speech. But where we're at is the Democrats are stuck in the middle, hence the title of this show. They're stuck in the middle, and they don't know which way to go. On one hand, if they move forward with the Impeachment, the President of the United States is going to bash them and say, see, all they have in their basket is nothing but to take me out and try to drag me in the mud and try to ruin my stellar reputation. And stop me from doing the wonderful things I am doing. The work of the people. If they go the other way, what Trump will say is, see, they could have impeached me, but they didn't impeach me because there was nothing wrong. I was totally exonerated. I didn't have any collusion or conspiracy with Russia in the election. And I certainly didn't obstruct justice. They could have impeached me if they wanted to. I'm a good boy. So that is literally, by definition, stuck in the middle. Yeah, you bet. Here we are, stuck in the middle, nothing's happening. So this is like a fabulous business deal, chess game kind of thing, reality show, if you will. What do we do? What are people doing? What are the Democrats doing? What are the Republicans doing? What are the third column? What are they doing? Well, I know that Justin Amash came out. And I'm really proud of him. And he had a really wonderful town hall meeting. He went back home in his home state, right? And he got a standing ovation twice first when he walked in the door, and then again when he started talking about the reality of he read the report. And anyone, this is one of the things he said that really struck with me, anyone who reads that report cannot help but see the obstruction and the criminal elements that are involved. And then the thing that really got me, though, is when Mueller came out and in his, during his nine-minute speech, said that, listen, we had serious, serious, what did it say, we call it, sweeping, complete, from the Russians, and I can't remember his exact words of what he says. I'll bet you've got it written down, though, systematic, sweeping, systematic, what you call it from the Russians. And every American should be concerned. Every American. And he also said every American needs to read the report. And boy, out there, read the report, because you will be convinced. Well, let's take a look at all of what he said in his nine minutes. I mean, somebody stopped me in the street yesterday and said, you know, it's four hundred and forty eight pages. Have you read it? Okay. And I was really stuck. And I think if you stop everyone on the street, they would have the same answer. Including Congress. Right. Well, they have a duty, but then we all, according to Mueller, we all have a duty to do something. Well. So the question is, you know, did Mueller, you heard it here on ThinkTech, did Mueller do a good job here? Mueller did a good job if it was nineteen sixty-two. Right. I'll go on with that. The rules of the game have changed and that what are the rules of the game? There are no rules. Right. Okay. You know, I respect Robert Mueller and, you know, his dedication as an ex-Marine and you know, service career individual. And what is their model? You don't wear the badge of politics at all when you're in the armed services. You just don't. You don't bite the chain of command. You don't bite the chain of command. He lives his life and I think it's played out here during the two years of the investigation and certainly in the portrayal of the report. So can I fault him for that? No. Because in his heart, that's what he's trying to do. Now, you know, he says some things that I think go beyond him trying to be completely neutral on it. And let me just read one quote. That the Constitution requires a process other than criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. So he's giving these, you know, these tidbits, these little trail notes for Congress to follow and he's saying, look at the report. Look at the Constitution. It's all there in front of you. In fact, he said, the report is my testimony. There it is. I remember lawyers who used to, you know, in my practice experience, go to court. They write it out. They write it out in their brief. And when it came time for argument, oral argument with the judge, they would make this strange assumption that the judge read the brief, that he understood it and he was on the same page and then they would lose. They would lose because they miscalculated what the judge was looking at and thinking about and realizing it. You have to calculate your audience. So you want to hit a 448 page deal and you want to get very cute about how you frame everything so cautiously. Wouldn't it have been better for him to say in English, expressly, I don't feel that I can charge obstruction here. But I have had a number of, I have found in my investigation, a number of elements that would permit Congress, or if he wasn't a sitting president, a court to convict him of obstruction of justice. I am not going to do anything because I feel, you know, restrained to do that, but you guys can and you should pursue this in English. He could have said that in his remarks on Thursday, too. He didn't say that. He disguised it. Yeah. Okay, so what did he say? He said, had we had the confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. So he's kind of... Why couldn't he say... We think the president committed a crime and you should do something about it. It's the flip side of that. Why is he being so cute? You know, most of the country. I agree he's not clear. He's not being direct. The base is not going to accept anything he says and then all the other people are confused about what does he really mean? Will the guy please speak his mind already? You know, he's had all that money and he's had all this time and we all sat around waiting. He was going to be our savior. Girls, I got to tell you, he has not been our savior. And will he be our savior going forward? What did I say about calling those girls off-camera? Will he be our savior? Well, you're going to get what you get. This is it. You could take him behind closed doors and have him do further testimony. He's not going to give any more than he already has in that nine minutes. I guarantee you. He's done. He's done. He's done. But you know, I don't think he's done the job the American people had hoped for. Or at least the people I know had hoped for. So let's shift for a minute to Nancy. Nancy who was in and out of that job already. Nancy who we all have such hope for. We hope. We have aspirational hope that Nancy can carry this. But every time she does anything aggressive, anything meeting Trump at the past, responding to him sharply, we say, wow, go for it, Nancy. Go for it, Nancy. But the fact is that she's kind of milk toast anyway, in my opinion. And she really hasn't, like Mueller, hasn't realized what I would have hoped for her. There is no countervailing voice here. Trump controls the agenda. He lies and a lot of people believe it. He is making his point without any pushback on so many things. And she pushes back on the, what do you call it, the reality show kinds of things. But she's not really pushing back. There is no voice that argues with him consistently, regularly, and aggressively. Well, I think that Nancy's whole approach here has some merit to it. If they were to rush through, get this impeachment going, get it on board, get it in the house, then it goes to the Senate and the Senate goes, bing, kicks it out. And then Trump gets to say, well, look, they brought an impeachment and I was exonerated. Then he can really claim it because the Senate will have done that for her. For him, I mean. Wasn't exonerated, though. Right. Well, no, I mean, I mean, after the fact, yeah, but that's what he'll say, right? And so I can understand that she wants to continue all of these investigations that she's got going. You know. I'm really getting fatigued with the investigation. I'm going to invest the point. Oversight. And then there's a, that was an exact point, 17 or 20 or 25 investigations going on. What have we heard about the product? Well, we had two court decisions this week. Full of those investigations. Has a single thing popped out that has interested us? Yes. Two. But there was two court decisions that happened, but wait, they were from the investigations in Congress and they ruled in favor of Congress and the financial committee. It was Maxine Waters got what she wanted to be able to get some of his tax returns and to get his financials. So that was one small, you know, victory anyway. Wouldn't it be better if you say to yourself, morally, you know, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, tonight, Jimmy Stewart, all that, look, a violation of law has taken place here. And because of that, I vote with my conscience. I think the democracy is being rendered torn asunder here. I think the balance of power has been shattered. The First Amendment has been shattered. I am going to vote. I'm going to move for impeachment, even if they don't, and I'm going to vote for anybody who makes a motion for impeachment. I'm doing that because I think it's the right thing. Gee, it took a Republican to say that, Justin Amash. Justin Amash. It took a Republican to say that. I'm not a Democrat, but a Republican. You get my one, one. And that's been 24 hours, at least maybe two days already. Yeah. Still, just one. One. Okay, so remember, remember there's an old political strategy and it's not going to work here. I know they've done it in the past as they tried it with Benghazi, okay? They tried to just drip and drab it, prolong it, protract it, and, you know, as long as you can, so all this stuff, this bad information comes out, and it, you know, just death through a thousand cuts, you know, and then the president, candidate is rendered useless by the time election comes. I hope the Democrats are not trying to take this and investigate, investigate, wait for more witnesses, wait for more witnesses for the next 12 months, and hope they can, you know, knock Donald Trump off with a thousand cuts. It's not going to work. Oh, you're right. The American public is tired of it. So if you're going to impeach now's the time, now's the time, and you better get it over before fall. Well, it's a favor of impeachment. Raise your hands. Amen. Amen. How are you doing now? I told you I was in last week. Okay, that's right. But you know, every single Democratic candidate has come out about that impeachment needs to happen, that we need to go forward with impeachment. Every single one of them has now, oh wait, there's four, I take it back. Kelsey Gabbard, and I can't remember the other three, there's a couple of them that have not come out yet, but every other candidate has come out about it. We need to go forward with impeachment. What I worry about is that we play this game with the soap opera, you know, the reality show, and we'll move on, and meanwhile, Russia will be interfering with the investigation, doing the same thing, and he'll be doing machinations upon machinations because he gets bolder. All the time. He gets away with it, like any psychopath. He gets bolder all the time, and he'll continue to do it, but worse, because now he knows he can do it. And the damage is being done to our democracy and our institutions of democracy now. Right. Right. Exactly. Okay, we're not going to get the votes in the Senate. So what? Give it up, exactly. That's what I think. My point about it is, yes, it'll fail, but you want to put it out there. Exactly. You want to stand for something. And at least you know you did the right thing. It's not wearing any clothes. Right. And with that thought, you know, I think we're going to take a minute. We'll come back. There's lots more to talk about. We're on Trump Week, W-E-E-K. We'll be right back. 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 a.m. Aloha. Aloha. My name is Andrew Lening. 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 co-workers 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. Before the break, we were talking about Trump and the Russians, and the fact that the Russian, we haven't done anything to stop the Russians. This is important for this part of our discussion. This part of our discussion is a foreign policy, I call it foreign policy failures, because no action has been taken by Trump, all the deflection about the investigation, all this, but no action to be taken by Trump or Congress to preserve the voting system and voting security in the country. Well, wait, because Congress has actually written and passed bipartisan, passed two bills in the House that Mitch McConnell refuses to look at, and it's all about election security. Incredible. And you won't do anything. Let's say there's four of them, I think. Is it four now? Okay. Yeah. I only knew of two, but yeah. Incredible. Okay, but you wanted to make a point about the whole Russian affair, and Trump's view of the question, as he has expressed it recently, of whether Russia did in fact interfere in our elections in 2016. Right. And know this, that he didn't just blurt it out in front of a camera, he actually took the time, and it was 1.57 a.m., but nevertheless, he took the time to tweet out the following. He said, Russia, Russia, Russia. That's all you heard of the beginning of this witch hunt hoax. And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me get elected. It was a crime that didn't exist, so now the Dems and their partner, Fake News Media, dot, dot, dot, okay. So he inadvertently said, okay, yeah, they helped me. He said it twice. He said that tweet corrected something else in the tweet, and then he sent the same tweet twice, where the language indicates that yes, Russia did interfere in the election. He just didn't have anything to do with it. What troubles me is that, with all of that, this goes to the foundation of our democracy voting. Bang. This is a republic. This is a democracy. You haven't done Jack. And he hasn't done Jack. We're not even talking about it. And I say this every week, I think, because it's my biggest fear, is that our election security is number one. Who cares who's running? Who cares what good candidate can go against Trump? If he cheats, it doesn't matter how good they are, which is what he's doing in it. Don't be sure that any of those Democratic candidates are going to legitimately win because the whole election is going to be remembered. We would have never known that they actually were successful in getting in some of the election machines, if it wasn't for, I can't remember her name, but she's in jail now for five years for leaking a document that... The Russian agent. No, she was in the military in the Air Force, and I'm sorry, I can't remember her name. But she's in serving five years for leaking a document to say, we know that they came in and hit our machines. They were successful, and that would have never been known. They would have been subject to speculation or hearsay, but she would... She would whistle blow it on the military. I think it was an NSA document, so you know. So let's talk about the other aspects of this vacuum on foreign policy. I'll just tick down. Where are we in China? They're threatening now to withhold natural resources from us that we used to make batteries, and those are critical resources. And I don't know what we're going to do about that. They have ways to hurt us that they have not... Well, we've let that go because of our environmental concerns. So we're at 1.4 billion metric tons of this material for computers and batteries and all sorts of critical things. I think China's sitting on 24, 25 billion metric tons of this raw material and where they got it from Africa. Unless we send... After we send all our recycled stuff, we send it back to China. So they dig it out of the earth? Yeah, they dig it. I know they're mining it, but that's what we do with it. We send all our recycled stuff back there. So they make very well leverage that against us, and that would put us a little bit in the world of hurt. Say nothing about hacking where you don't admit that you hacked it, but you brought a grid down. I think that's coming. That's coming because he's aggravating everybody. Mexico, just a moment on Mexico. Oh my gosh, with the tariffs... He made a deal with them and now he's going to go back up again. But didn't he make a deal just a few days ago? Yeah, it was like a minute ago. I mean, it didn't get passed by Congress because it's at the level of a treaty. But now he's reneging on that deal by imposing these punitive tariffs on them because he's claiming it's their fault. All these people trying to get in the border, it's their fault. It's Mexico's fault. You impose an obligation on them to stop the caravans or what have you. This is like when he wanted them to pay for the wall. Right. It's ridiculous. Well, they have actually... But he's violating his own agreement. His own agreement, yes. That he wanted to negotiate it. How can, if you are a farm country, how in the world can you trust... You cannot. Who violates his agreement before the ink is dry? No, you cannot. Well, and remember this proposed tariff is right now sitting at 5%. It could go up to 25%. Who knows what happens. If he's not getting what he wants as fast as he wants, then you'll see 10. You see the stock market right now down 369 points on the Dow Jones because of this new little nuance about the 5% against Mexico. And they know very well, if you're on Wall Street or an investor, that 5% tariff is just the beginning of it. And knowing Donald Trump, it probably will go to 25%. Well, the stock market's been going down regularly for the past two weeks. And what is interesting about it, I'm no expert, but what is interesting about it is that the 25,000 level is a kind of benchmark level where investors say, well, I'll hold tight, but if we cross 25,000 on Dow and get below that, then I got a bail. And dump on everything. This is a meaningful benchmark for me. And I think that's going to happen. Well, the market priced in the China tariffs, even at the worst, 25%. Over time it's been priced in. It's in the recipe. But this Mexico thing was a nuance that they hadn't thought of or even could suspect what happened. Anyway, so that's just another part. And then of course, what have we heard about Venezuela? Nothing. Wasn't it supposed to help those people? He didn't help them at all. He took away some of their aid. They left the country. He took away some of their aid. They're starving. That guy is in charge of everything now. The dictator is winning. Maduro is winning the game. And we haven't heard much, have we? Not even made a moral statement about it. It's an abandoned issue is what it is. He can't remember from day to day what his initiatives are. And the thing that's important to remember is that Russia has a base down there. And Russia has a big hand in what's happening. And why Maduro is still in power is because of Russia's involvement down there. So we need to remember that. And it's a base that's big enough and has a big enough runway to hold nuclear carrying aircraft, which is, they have nuclear. We talked about this a couple months ago. It could be the new Cuba crisis. Absolutely. You know, there's already, I suggest. The curiosity is why haven't we heard anything from it? One of those things, just swirling out there by itself, that he may need a new distraction, but he's just, right now he doesn't need that particular distraction. Just to collect your distractions. Collect your distractions. You take them off the shelf when you need the emergency. Emergency distraction. See, I'll play this distraction today. So now we have an emergency with Iran. That somehow justifies violating Congress's express will not to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia. Which he did anyway. When he's selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and they're using him in Yemen. Oh, my God. Even though we wrote a bill that said no, even through the Senate, it said no. Yeah. So who is controlling this? There is no counterbalance. Wow, when you sell something forbidden by Congress, isn't that just one more good reason for an impeachment process immediately? You bet. Another phony emergency. That's what he's doing. There'll be more emergencies. Why? Because he got away with two of them already. Nobody stopped him. Right. Nobody stopped him on the border, not really about that phony emergency. Right. And nobody's stopping him on the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia. Another phony emergency. Don't forget the money he didn't get for as well. That became that emergency. Right. You know. Let's not forget about Jared Kushner too, who's in Israel and it's not going well. Well, let's see that. His peace plan is not going well. And Netanyahu is even going to, they have to do another vote. So Netanyahu may not even continue on his power. You see how paper thin Trump's support of Netanyahu was. He's not popular really. Right. And Jews in America really don't like him at all. Right. And he's not looking for peace. He's looking for this kind of exaggerated security thing. Right. Which doesn't lead to peace. So what you have is that deal. When Trump helped him win, you know, gestures and moves helped him win. They didn't buy that. And the government under Netanyahu fell apart in 60 days. Yeah. And now, you know, it's a first time that ever happened in Israel. I don't think Israel is in good condition in terms of its government right now. Yeah, it's not. So, and I don't think Netanyahu is coming back anytime soon. So it's a failed, what I'm saying, it's a failed foreign policy. Which of course they'll take no responsibility for. Right. They won't even talk about it. Okay, North Korea. Oh, when he insulted Joe Biden, I agree with Kim Jong-un because he really is a low IQ guy. You know, giving his record. And the worst part about what he said was that I don't care about these missiles. They don't bother me at all. Whereas he's in Japan and Japan seriously has a problem with these missiles. And yet he just totally, I mean, he's in the palace when he's saying these things and it's like he doesn't care. You know, there's something, whether it's one-on-one or one-on-500 year on the podium, is know your audience. Know your audience. And apparently he'd never learned that in in speech 101. He just never did. He hasn't gotten to first base on Kim Jong-un. And the last thing that I saw about Kim Jong-un is that Kim Jong-un was all ticked off that that meeting didn't go anywhere. And thus he was assassinating a bunch of people who were involved tangentially in that meeting. So what kind of success is that exactly? Are we making any progress in dealing with this man? Answer, no, not at all. So, you know, if Trump were here today and said, oh, I did a great job in North Korea. We're best buddies. Not. Well, you know, we heard for at least a day because that's what the news cycle is these days, one day. There was quite a bit of consternation about the president of the United States palling up, saddling up with Kim Jong-un about bashing Joe Biden. I mean, you know, and Trump said, well, I was sticking up for sleepy Joe Biden. You know, instead of saying that he was a low IQ idiot, I said he was a low IQ individual. So I'm sticking up for him. This is childish. This is childish. This is, what, three-year-old, five-year-old thing. Do you think his base season is childish? No. You know, that one lady in that house... But when's the adult in the room going to say this is childish? Yes. I don't know. The other thing, since we're talking about... No, no, no, I was talking about Asia. The thing about covering the name of the U.S.S. Oh, my gosh. That was like the worst out of the worst. That came from the White House. Yes. That was without Trump's knowledge. No way. I don't care what he says. And then at the very end of his whole denial that it wasn't me, I didn't know anything about it. But, you know, somebody else must have done it. And, you know, their heart was in the right place. They had good intentions. Was that what it was? They were well-meaning. Well-meaning. That's what it was. Yeah, but they were well-meaning. In other words, he knew that they were doing it for him. For him. And he was okay with it. They never problem with it at all. But I'll tell you, if I'd been on a ship, an enlisted man, an E1 enlisted man, somebody told me to put a tarp over the name of the ship. Put me in the bridge. I would say put me in the bridge. Yeah, me too. No, that didn't happen. That didn't happen. They wanted to go do a speech. You know, that's scary. And because they had their insignias with, you know, the USS John McCain, they were forbidden to attend. Yeah, they couldn't wear the stuff that had anything about McCain. What do you mean? Well, he wouldn't have liked them. He'd never been a fan. He doesn't like the guy. Seems to me are pervasive to suggest that he's a really bad dude. He's a bad guy. And everybody around him is a selected bad guy. And they're running bad government. And yet we're locked out of fixing that. That's why we need Nancy to step up. Yes, we do. That's why it's not enough to have these endless, I'm going to have an investigation proceedings when we don't actually do anything. Well, they drag out the ability to actually take the subpoenas, right? But I'm sad about one more thing, you guys. I'm sad that we didn't have time to go into his domestic policies today. As usual, not enough time. Next week, we've got plenty to talk about, too, huh? Let's try to focus next time on his invisibility. I call it the AWOL policies, where he doesn't have a policy, but he does destroy the country. Right. And we should tick them off because people get lost in the reality show. They don't realize nothing happening on infrastructure or healthcare or the social safety net, except bad stuff. So next week. Next week. Next week. Jim Apachello, Cynthia Sinclair. Look forward to it. I love you guys. Thank you, James. Appreciate it. We love you, too. Thanks. Aloha.