 I'm live on Think Tech, I'm Jay Fidel and this is Trump Week every Wednesday we do this at 11 o'clock and we are happy to do it this week because there are so many things worthy of discussion. So on the show today we have Tim Appichella my co-host Stephanie Dalton at home and Winston Welsh at home. We're all at home as a matter of fact we're doing we're doing the right thing by social distancing. So this was a really interesting week a revealing week if you will to see what we really got in our president in a time of you know unadulterated crisis. Tim what comes to mind at first? Well all the press conferences and all the ups and downs of our commander-in-chief one minute being serious about the corona 19 virus and then being completely flippant and not serious and then you know the recent developments of basically making false comparisons of a normal flu and the deaths that are incurred with a normal flu and car accidents and the death that's incurred nationwide with car accidents and trying to then tie in the corona of 19 mitigation or the the clampdowns of the economy and saying well there's except basically he's implying there's acceptable losses with the corona 19 deaths so that we don't tank the economy and I found that really jaw-dropping and I just really couldn't believe what I heard. Yeah and other people have copied him you know some of his Trumpers have copied him and my favorite one was a guy named Patrick. Patrick is the lieutenant governor of the state of Texas and he said you know these these old people you know why don't they sacrifice themselves on the altar of the stock market and it'll be easier for us if they just die and go away. I thought that was really interesting and it's an extension of what Trump was saying inter alia. Stephanie what comes to mind for you? I find that so off-putting I mean hardly presidential so once again I think you know his advisors must make mighty efforts but they're not very successful at keeping him presidential or much less on script so it just shows that his priorities and notions for where we're going in this crisis have nothing to do with all of us they have all to do with what's going to be in his best interest and entertaining those kinds of really extreme suggestions or recommendations I think is just revealing a little opening to see where he really is so it's sad after all his experience for these three years and there have been some things to his credit he's still not overcoming the challenge of how to be presidential and how to lead and how to unite and how to help us solve this dreadful crisis. My favorite part of one of those those conferences where for the second half of the conference about an hour long he launched into a discussion of his own altruism and how he was a billionaire many times over and he was providing you know service to the country and they should everybody should appreciate how much he's doing for the country he's doing this for the benefit of the country. I actually almost lost my meal at that point in time but he went on for like half an hour and I said this is not the issue the issue is not Trump the issue is people dying from coronavirus we're in a crisis he doesn't see a crisis he sees a campaign rally which he can't have actually with people you know in a big room or a big campaign rally so he tries to do it in these conferences. Winston what about you I'm sure you had some sharp response to some of the things he's been doing this week. Well you know as you know I I am completely dismayed as our half of the people in this country and maybe more with this the the whole presidency it's a crushing blow to who we are as Americans but maybe more concerning to me is that the approval ratings of this president are at an all-time high they're matching is all-time high so it either tells me that people we've had such a disconnect between what is presidential and what is not and and that's the fact that that his grants and lies and misinformation on a daily basis which are can be quite dangerous and not and not just in the time of code but in general to our nation the fact that this is passing this presidential and as authoritative this is really scary we have an educational spiritual moral crisis of the first order in this nation and it's evident by those by those results and I realize people do want to support their leaders we do want to support our leaders but we don't have the leader that we can that's commanding support right now we have a lot of other people though that have stepped up to leadership in state governors Inslee and Cuomo and Great State of California Governor Newsom we have even in Hawaii here where our own mayor and governor have worked together to get a quarantine up and treat this as a serious threat so companies are stepping up nonprofits are stepping up people are stepping up and they're realizing we have to bypass the information that we're getting right now and try and suss through the truth and we need media to do it we need this show to do it we need a lot of people to step up and do that and they are doing that so again my faith in America is is constantly renewed despite the battering that it takes sometimes by people who purport to represent the best values you know Winston there was Jeff again who wrote the piece but there was a piece this week about how Trump oh yes it was a daily coast KOS right and they were they created a petition for you to sign if you felt that Trump that the networks should not carry these press conferences that trump does live they should comment on them afterward but not carry them live because they're too confusing to authoritative and therefore confusing when he lies would you sign a petition like that you know what's the petition going to do you either know that their lies are not and the people that have drank the deep orange Kool-Aid and sorry I don't want to just disperse Kool-Aid but they it's a religious belief it's a like a cult but they they believe that he is absolutely right he demands our our obedience and I don't want to say our worship but but certainly that he's right signing a petition is meaningless who's going to read it who's going to listen to it I don't put much stock in that they've been signing that saying sign this thing since day one and it won't make a difference people tune in half the time I think just to see what outrageous thing he's going to say and the other half just to say oh well he said this so therefore it must be true because he does he speaks the gospel truth so I don't put any stock in that I think any person in this country who wants the real news has to has to search for you've got to look it doesn't mean that you need to I'm not saying that the media is not true there are different opinions out there and you need to go through that yourself and do some some soul searching and see what seems right for you but certainly without the whatever's coming out the documented lies that we see on a daily basis are not the truth the other truth that we need to find out around that is up to each of us individually and collectively as well to discover you know Tim to demonstrate the depravity of the ignorance out there I want to mention that you know you and I did a show which was entitled the question is is coronavirus a hoax okay and now Trump was saying that early on you know before he admitted that it was a serious problem it was not that long ago actually it was when he first started talking about the coronavirus epidemic later pandemic but we get responses we get comments on YouTube when we post our shows and I told you that on this show and maybe you've seen yourself on this show where we where we ask that question we have gotten an enormous number of comments and I would say more than half of them are from people who actually today now think that Trump was right when he said it was a hoax it was just really chilling they're still locked on to what he was saying before talk about a blind following they remember what he was saying before he's changed his tune since then but they're still agreeing with what he said before that it is a hoax what's your reaction to that well my reaction is exactly what Winston said and that there is a anywhere from 38 percent to 40 percent that have drinking the orange Kool-Aid doesn't matter what he says they believe whatever he says whatever he does and they believe it's the right thing the bottom line is whatever he says that these press conferences they now have to say okay that's what I believe particularly when now he's being a little bit more serious about the virus some of them are begrudgingly starting to follow those words but if you looked at all those comments and I think we got over 75 80 comments and I would say I disagree I think we had well over 80 90 percent saying that yes the coronavirus 19 is definitely a hoax and what do you say to that you know low information voters I don't know how you want to classify them but the bottom line is it's it's really unbelievable and then you know we have a wartime president quote-unquote wartime president who's acting less than a wartime president he's acting quite petty in a lot of instances if I might just cite one example I don't know if you guys caught it or not but I saw a quid pro quo taking place yesterday's interview with Fox Fox interview in the Rose Garden and I don't know if you guys caught it or not but he said uh referring to Cuomo in New York is that they have to treat us well also they can't just say gee we'd like we should get that or we should get this um it almost like he was dangling support in assistance to New York if they weren't respectful and nice to Donald Trump if they weren't I saw it as if they weren't um singing the praises of Donald Trump he may or may not render assistance from the federal government and so and I'm sure that there's many of his followers saying yeah that's a great idea if they're not respectful to you and and kiss your toes and your feet then withhold withhold all support yeah you're not the only one who found a quid pro quo there that was easy to find in what he said and in fact I've seen a couple articles for the same proposition using that term that he was demanding a quid pro quo from Cuomo uh really amazing and I thought it was you know it was accurate he wasn't necessarily criticizing Trump he was criticizing the the federal response and and Stephanie what about the federal response can we drill down a little what what have the response been in terms of supporting people supporting doctors the hospitals the people who were sick uh what what is the response in providing needed equipment critically needed equipment and and supplies and and testing equipment um how do you how would you rate uh well first tell us what has Trump actually done and how would you rate his efforts well I must say I rate them very lowly that they here there's no response he refuses to take the recommendations to enact that production uh act that comes out of the 50s and has been used many times by other leaders to redirect the manufacturing a process in in the country to make the airplanes that you need to go take on the Germans or whatever it is but um that has has been very painful to listen to the pleas and and the importuning of the medical people who don't have any of their clothing that they need to go in and be protected and they're getting sick so we're facing a further prospect of disaster is when these people in the medical profession who are willing to risk themselves as they're getting sick they're dropping out and we have less people to take care of the people who are increasingly sick so I I think it's so um short short um minded he's just not thinking about how this is um something is going to come back on him so I think that that those and that that plead from the medical community is across all media and how that can be ignored is beyond my understanding and I think the American public is aware of that um so as far as his response it's been pitiful and scary and uh uh we're going to see things get a lot worse because of it but I think that um he's as Tim was saying I believe that he's already practiced quick bro quo with California he's done a lot of that with California so they weren't even supposed to get any disaster funding or FEMA from previous disasters remember the fires and earthquakes so um he's trying to withhold um support for things he doesn't like there and unless they play ball with him he's not going to support them well now I think there's some other forces um at work but I think the question is what is the federal government supposed to be states are the um powerhouse for each one each one of them has its own status as a state I mean went to war over states rights in the civil war states are powerful in their own right and the federal government and the states together create a bigger prospect of unity and support and safety so the fed is there to be a promoter of states rights and a facilitator of having them meet their their goals which is the best prospect for the nation and builds on so there's some real confusion and tension that wasn't I don't think intended to be there in this arrangement we have of the United States you know which is a kind of new federalism you know in the old tension between the federal government taking action and this leaving into the states it goes back to the constitution but the republicans over the past decade or two you know I've really focused on that and their idea is the federal government should do as little as possible and lay it off on someone else on the states and that seems to be what trump has done he's saying to the governors you do it you take care of it you order the ventilators you order the supplies I'm really not going to help you and I'm not going to really activate the defense production act because I want I want people to come to me companies to come to me and and offer their services but I'm going to take affirmative action on this the whole thing sounds like a politician setting things up so that he can take credit for success and deny responsibility lay it off on someone else if there's a failure what do you think about this new federalism we are seeing on an issue that's so critical to the country well can I just say that and I'm just going to say Pence is not there anymore he's coming on and doing all of these things himself instead of using the people he appointed to move this initiative forward so that is very confusing and a lot of those experts are not there anymore including Dr. Fauci so he's at the center of all of this and taking the lead on everything exactly as you say it's he's trying to get the credit for anything and and also requires people to come directly to him it's I didn't I'm very interested in the tutors as I'm sure you all are but I had no idea I was going to get to have an experience of living under Henry VIII as we seem to be having now speaking of how the federal system works so. Well you know Donald Trump is a master politician he's he has his finger on the pulse of America and I certainly don't mean to disparage half of the people in our nation who are good folks or people of their friends or family there are co-workers who fervently believe that that he maybe he has warts maybe he's ugly but what he promotes is right fundamentally whatever whatever that is and then the other half says no that's not the America that that I believe in or that we believe in and this has really been happening probably I don't know if it ever stopped happening since the civil war honestly it's more genteel now and you know you could see this in an issue like easy things like right not to be fired from your job or denied housing if you're gay or lesbian half the states have protections half the states don't it's been 10 years since any state adopted protections the last 10 years they decided this 10 years ago basically Virginia just decided this year to join the states that have protections first southern state to do it it's not a sea change but it just lets you know the states pretty much have already decided this where you live who you associate with what you believe what your media source is we've already become a new federalized system whether we like it or not maybe it's I don't know maybe out of this we're going to be have something that's more we'll develop more robust systems so that such that if this is going to be the new order then we need to have resilience built in maybe it's the western states joined together or the southern states or the the middle states in more compacts of stronger association like the old map h&t was so that if the federal government is not going to start they don't believe in these certain rights for people or if they're not going to respond in certain ways or they want to have laws that are more akin to the people that reflect the people that are there maybe it is it's already gone that way and we're just wallpapering it over I don't know but it seems like there's a lot of fighting that says no you have to believe this and the other half says no you have to believe that and there doesn't seem to be a lot of happy compromise in between but I mean I'd like to think that fundamental rights and responsibilities of citizens are guaranteed across this land and it doesn't always seem to be that way and yet we're moving towards a more perfect union and that may be that we have better ideas percolating at the top that I don't know I don't I don't have the answers but certainly a lot of questions and answers will be given in the next six months a year and forever forever more not get this uh crisis ties down you're a very kind person Winston I must say um you know the reality though is that the federal government has um abdicated its role in my view on on the on the crisis it hasn't done I mean if we here had a few minutes to decide what we would do as president it would be completely different than what he was doing that what he's done and doing so he's abdicated and he's he's laid it in the in the hands of the states but then he hasn't funded the states which actually takes takes us to the probably the biggest issue to discuss and we only have a few minutes to discuss it and that is uh the bill that trump is involved in the republicans are involved in which apparently has just today passed the house and senate and is now the law a bill of over two trillion dollars and the tension which took 10 days to resolve was the republicans wanted to give it all to business and to this you know this this discretionary fund uh under the control of minutian um and the democrats wanted to give it to the people the working steps around the country and to save them from a recession that would be very personal and disastrous for millions and millions and millions of people so my Tim why don't you lead off what happened here uh why did we get into this tension what is wrong with mudville that we should pose life against wall street i think we learned a lesson from the uh tax cut the tax break to the corporations and as much as i don't like to give donald trump credit i'm going to give him some kudos on the following he said i don't want to see the corporations do a buyback of their stock i don't want to see that at all and i was good for him to say and i think that was the basis of why the republicans couldn't exactly get exactly what they wanted and that was big tax breaks payroll cuts uh you name it uh taking care of corporate america and taking care of the one percent and i think this bill does hammer out and does serve um taking care of the larger corporations but also small businesses direct tax relief to uh you know everyone who's affected by this virus shutdown and it's not the best it's not even close to the best bill but i think there's there's a compromise here and i think if you look at the details of this two trillion dollar bailout there's something for everybody okay stefany what do you think about the bill what do you what do you think about the effects of spending two trillion two plus trillion dollars uh in an economy you know from ultimately tax receipts in an economy which is on its back how's that going to work out and do you agree with it on a moral level i think that uh that the final um out the outcome is more moral and more addressing needs than than um anything that was proposed previously so i think that um we may have something that has um stimulated um that certainly the the economy some it seems to be there's signs of some appeasing the stock market issues because it has value uh for those who need who who require more help um i think that um it it hasn't really solved anybody's problem because we're increasing the deficit and we're going to have to end up paying all of this back but but on the moral side of it it does it does put people's feet to the fire as to how it is that they're going to pump back into the the levers that are going to bring us back to normal again so if that ends up less than what we did with the tarp and all of that during the financial crisis everybody understands there were some mistakes made but that was a crisis situation and that we can do that better and hopefully what the outcome is is that it's better but i think that winston's point about the lack of leadership at the we just have no leadership so we look to this bill and its prospects and its power to influence and um and and change the direction of our economy and then the the the the desperate status of the people in the nation and especially the medical community as we said before so um we're looking to those kinds of things alone we have to use that to make to bring us back together and i think that that is really pitiful when you think of the leaders we've had in the past in these crises that really transform the nation's way of feeling and thinking about our status and how we're going forward so um it's very we're operating under such a huge deficit even though we have two trillion hey how good is that that's great but we have no leadership to bump that two trillion into something that can converts our minds and and our hopes so in that regard go ahead and well i i just wanted to bring up quickly that i think there's some paradigms going on here paradigms in other words people are so confused there's no nothing to grasp and so some people like what was said before with the sectionalities in the country yes they're those that are coalescing but also people have paradigms so that the cult paradigm for trump what else is there that's what pulls it pulls them together and our paradigm that's um emerging having to do with biden which has been which has made me think about this which has been so enormously um amazing in that everybody is kind of following the lead of south Carolina and that's true that you know winston doesn't give you doesn't just trouble you in some way i mean there's two trillion reasons for abuse there's two trillion reasons for corruption and i and i suppose instead of spending a week on fine-tuning exactly who is going to get what and you know in the working man section what working woman section um they spent 10 days arguing about how they would control trump and stop him from putting it into a mirror lago which was a real concern by the democrats that's what they were arguing about the control on the discretionary fund and i'm not sure they actually handled that i'm not sure they actually handled the the problem of who do you give what to be equitable so we have here a bill that was done with with very little drill down you know attention to detail um do you think this is going to work uh and do you think it's going to work for the economy going forward it is a huge amount of money and it's a huge bill to pay back uh what are your thoughts about the way this ended up winston boy it better work i'll just say that you know people are hurting out there this is an unprecedented economic crisis if nothing else which is why you know you hear these musings though we're going to start the economy on easter i don't think so it's not going to happen as far as i can tell but you know this the administration has been a hallmark of really corruption and um this does not nothing like that surprises me uh who cares if we give him the money to buy mara lago if it helps it's already going there anyway on some level he's telling people to stay in this house there's been no separation of his funds i'm not worried about that i want to see these these people especially the 55 million americans who are um you know independently employed they need relief this is just not for people who are you know working in the for corporation we needed across the board and it's interesting political and interesting articles and about the Donald Trump was exactly the president we need because he's not a not a budgetary uh a hawk on this that you know these ideas that were dismissed as lunacy a month ago like andre yang's giving a universal income or uh you know handing out but you know even to the point where probably universal healthcare will come in and then donald trump can claim it as his own and say this is the good for the people because he is a master politician so if it means spending two trillion or four trillion or probably what i read today six trillion you know what in the end people don't care they don't care because it's just money it's going to be some inflation down the road we've been we haven't cared for a long time how much money we're spending where we're spending it or how we're spending it so adding a little bit right now or a lot of it actually this time it's needed and if it makes a difference and gets people to pay the rent to buy food to pay for medicine and then possibly some more down the road to to restart things obviously a lot of it's going to go to corporations a lot of it's going to be corruptions and and political payback that is that is uh absolutely going to be the case in any one of these government handouts it doesn't matter what administration it's under this one's just going to be more egregious than in the past but i'm all for it to get whatever we need to do to help people out right now that every man and every woman on the street out there so there's going to be a lot more to come where this came from thank you winston so tim you have the unenviable task of summarizing and predicting what's going to happen till next week prediction look for dr anthony foushee to hold his head once again on on front of the podium in disbelief as donald trump pontificates about the corona virus and his self-perceived reality of what the virus is and how to cure it that's one prediction number two is just realize that this economic relief is a drop in the bucket for all those many millions of people who are not working and the amount of checks they're going to get in the next month or two is a drop in the bucket so prediction we are going into a deep recession as a result of this corona virus no two ways about it i know the stock market's jumping up a thousand here in a thousand there but when the death toll starts to ring in and people really go into a you know a very fearful mode um the economy is to produce that what it needs to produce that's jobs and revenue for for america that's my prediction okay well that's all happy news but the story is this this guy's going to go shopping for groceries and he's told he'd better wear you know a mask and gloves when he goes and he comes back and he says you know you lied to me you lied to me uh they um i wore the mask and gloves but uh they told me i should wear clothing too it's everybody else i tried i didn't do a very good job at that anyway thank you very much you guys time means everything jay timing is everything thank you hey jay i'll leave you with one thing shaka's not shakes shaka's not shakes so in the future this can be our universal symbol of how you doing no more all right all right you guys oh good next week for trump week and if you look if you if you wait a little bit we'll start our show on corona virus corona watch thank you all thank you jim thank you stephanie thank you jay i love you