 Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Pompania. At the beginning of my show, for the last several episodes, I've started off with what I call a Trump dump, and today's show is actually going to be dedicated entirely to a Trump dump. But I'm going to begin with just listing off—I'm going to read off seven highlights from what will be part of former FBI director James Comey's testimony tomorrow. So it's just a few words. Patronage relationship, uneasy, loyalty, very awkward, letting Flynn go, cloud over his administration, and Attorney General Sessions went mum. Let all that sink in for a minute. Just all the highlights of what is going to be very interesting and well-watched, I guess, one of the most well-watched, perhaps, testimonies given by former FBI director tomorrow. Again, let that sink in. These are things that, based on a conversation—at least one conversation—that James Comey had with, I guess, President-elect Trump and then President Trump, having to do with how he can get loyalty from the FBI director, specifically having to do with the Russia investigation. Think about all those words. And what's more, let's think about the fact that throughout his entire campaign, Trump had promise after promise after promise. He said he had plans. He said he already knew what he was going to do in so many different ways, and it was going to be easy. It was going to be beautiful. However, Trump has no infrastructure plan other than to build a wall that no one wants and no one will pay for, as well as, as of yesterday, announcing that he wants to privatize the air traffic control for our country. That's an awful, awful idea, in my opinion. But nonetheless, that's his infrastructure plan. All of that is, is intended to create opportunity for investment. Okay. There was no tax plan. There was no health care plan. There was no plan to defeat ISIS, certainly not in his 30 days that he said he would do. In my opinion, Donald Trump is the least prepared person ever to become president. So that's just the beginning, and I haven't really begun my Trump dump. So welcome to Trump Dump, the June 7th, 2017 edition. Thanks to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, the United States of America has now abdicated from the role of global leadership, specifically where it comes to energy and climate change, and seeded it to China, the only other superpower-like country left. And let's be clear, China is not a free world democracy. It is governed by the Communist Party of China and has a history of human rights violations. This history includes freedom of speech and religion, as well as their one-child policy. This is where families are allowed only one child. The real problem here is what happens to the second child when born? In the recent past, they've been abandoned or merely thrown away like rubbish. That is a real true human rights violation. As of right now, as of 2016, China has the world's second-largest economy in gross domestic product, second to the United States, and the largest by purchasing power. That's because the number of people they have. And they have been advancing on the global market and economy steadily for years. China's coming. Their rise is there, and Trump and the Republicans have just seeded leadership to them. Interesting. Okay, the free world, or democratically elected world, is now led by our allies, Germany and France, instead of the United States of America. This all means that we, the United States, the people of the United States of America, are losing influence and relevance around the world. In his effort to put America first, Trump has in fact taken at least one step backwards. And what is more, he does not seem to either be interested in or concerned with anyone or anything other than his narrow and mostly unpopular agenda, his ever-narrowing base and his huge ego. But let's be real for a moment. Trump's agenda is not to benefit the people of the United States, but only to increase his own revenues, licenses, and business deals around the world through the office of the presidency. And this is working quite well for him. Between his brand and Ivanka's brand, they have been able to obtain many licenses that were otherwise stalled in China, Russia, and the Middle East. And add to that, the Saudis recently spent over $240 million at Trump establishments while lobbying him before and during his recent trip to Saudi Arabia. These profits, along with breaking NATO, removing the sanctions on Russia, and making the U.S. weaker on the global stage, are his greatest successes yet for the now-famous dossier. I'm sure most of you are aware of that. If that's not enough, these business actions are in complete conflict with the intent of the emoluments clause in our Constitution. This has been talked about by many people. Furthermore, regarding foreign countries, he has continued to speak highly of our foreign enemies, such as Putin and Assad, and even speaks well of Duterte of the Philippines, who recently told his soldiers that rape would go unpunished. I find that appalling. All the while, railing against and attacking Germany, France, and England, once again, are allies. All this has done is destabilize the world and remove the United States from the global leadership role. Seriously, the Trump doctrine seems to be abandoned the past 70 years and joined with Russia. Why is that acceptable? Why is that acceptable by anyone in this country? I don't care what political party you're a part of. Why is that acceptable? Why are we just denying, ignoring, or just deciding that that isn't something worth talking about because it's some liberal agenda? It's not a liberal agenda. It's a treasonous agenda, actually. And if it is determined to be so, well, I don't want to be the first to say I told you so, but I'm actually hoping it's not, but that's what I fear it's going to be. Now, I know that he ran as a nationalist populist, but he did not win the popular vote. And since winning the electoral college, he has continued to only speak to his base and not to the American people in total. He has never pivoted to the center in an effort to unify. In fact, he has done more to divide this country further, or perhaps bring the already existent divide into a bright light. Either way, this is only destabilized to the country. Emboldened, bigoted hate crimes, and put the vulnerable and innocent at risk. None of this leads to making America great. The opposite, in fact. And though it may be said, and by some, that he is merely trying to honor his campaign promises, it seems clear that he has abandoned quite a few of those promises while making others more prominent. And for clarity, it's not easy to understand what all of his campaign promises were, given that they changed based on who was in the audience at the time, and he's flip-flopped on most issues. So what has he stuck with, okay? He persists with his travel ban, his Mexican border wall. He continues to deport any and all illegal immigrants, seemingly whether they are law-breaking criminals or not. Breaking up families in the process, people that have been here for 20, 30 years, deporting them with seemingly no cause other than they were illegal 30 years ago. He declared the United States pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, despite 194 other countries and most businesses around the world and in the United States urging him to stay. In fact, just yesterday, Hawaii became the first state in the United States to individually commit to the Paris Climate Accord. I'm very proud of Hawaii today. Well done. And I will say well done to the state legislature and to Governor Ege, because in the absence of national leadership, Hawaii took a step forward. Well done. That's exciting. Trump continues to call for the repeal and replace of Obamacare, though this is also a broken promise with regards to what he has said about covering everyone. He has revised his opinion of NATO, but still bashes the members routinely, even when so far as to chastise them in his speech while on his big foreign trip. That was actually pretty special. Can you imagine Trump, the king of not paying his bills, chastising people for not paying their bills? All right. So what has he not done? This is a long list, too. He has not actually repealed Obamacare, although they're pretty close at the moment. They actually passed a version of it in the House, and it's now being looked at in the Senate. It's already gone through one version of, I guess, pre-assessment and determined that they can continue. They can actually vote on it. Okay. Well, that's a little frightening. If he does repeal it, as mentioned, it will be breaking his promise of better and cheaper healthcare for everyone. We'll move on. He has not ended ISIS within 30 days or even within 130 days. He has not found the funding to build his Mexico wall. He has not passed tax reform or an infrastructure bill. He has not passed any bill. The economy, though seemingly up when you look at the Wall Street numbers, is actually only plugging along, you know, job-wise, really honestly, thanks to the continuation of Obama policy. Because Trump has actually passed, you know, nothing at all, and certainly nothing of any economic value other than, I guess, he's repealed some regulations, I guess, through executive order. Everything he said would be easy. Has turned out to be anything but. In fact, Trump has only signed various executive orders, as I mentioned, which has not amounted to much. I mentioned how he railed against Obama for governing by executive order only. Glass houses, stones, yeah, we'll see where he is in the coming months and days. All right, remember when he said he would target Wall Street? Well, he seems to have changed his mind by appointing eight Wall Street executives to his administration, embracing the Wall Street elite and recommending Wall Street friendly policy, such as repealing Dodd-Frank, easing the regulations that were put in place after the 2008 recession. These regulations are there to protect the consumer, the American people, me and you. To go along with this, his health care, tax reform, environmental and infrastructure policies are a little more than a series of giveaways to the wealthy at the expense of, once again, you and me. Remember when he said his health care plan would be the best in the world and would cover everyone? I guess that was everyone who could afford it, but no one else. The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the latest Trump care bill, the one that passed the Republican House and is being considered by the Republican Senate right now, would lead to 23 million people losing their health care coverage, some by choice, but most because it will become simply unaffordable. This will disproportionately affect children, the poor and the elderly. And don't forget he told Australia a couple of months ago that they have a better health insurance program than we do. They have universal health care. We don't, and it's not something that's in the Republican policy agenda to even consider. It is widely believed and supported by many studies that a true universal or Medicare for all system in the United States would ultimately cost less for all American citizens. Cost less than anything Trump or the Republicans will ever put forward. They've said it plainly. They do not believe that everyone deserves health coverage. That deserving part only comes from those who have a good job. But what is a good job? A job with benefits. Perhaps benefits that are at least partially tax write off, which means the American people pay for it, which actually sounds a lot like socialism. So let me go back to that one. The benefits that are provided to people with a good job, a portion of which at least is tax deductible by that corporation, which means those benefits are indirectly being paid for by the American people, which does make that akin to socialism. So let's not run away from that word too quickly. Let's understand what socialism is and where we actually have socialism existing within our current United States of America. That also includes, by the way, the police department and the fire department. A lot of other areas. And then there's the minimum or living wage. The Republican position on a living wage was made clear yesterday, last night, by Karen Handel, the Republican running against John Ossoff in Georgia's 6th congressional district special election. This is a seat that has been held by Republicans for decades. The two of them did a live televised debate last night where Ossoff says, look, if somebody is working a 40-hour work week, they deserve the kind of standard of living that Americans expect. That's part of the American dream. And there are too many folks having trouble making ends meet. Republican Karen Handel followed up by saying the issue is an example of the fundamental difference between a liberal and a conservative. She goes on to say, I do not support a living wage. What I support is making sure we have an economy that is robust, with low taxes and less regulation, so that those small businesses that would be dramatically hurt if you imposed higher minimum wages on them are able to do what they do best, grow jobs and create good-paying jobs for the people of the 6th district. There's a problem with that. And we're going to get to that problem as soon as we come back from our break. So thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, Rose, Carl, Campania. This is our Trump dump for the day for June 7th, 2017. See you in a minute. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which streams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube.com, and broadcasts on cable OC-16 and Ollello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At DiveHeart, we believe that to be true. We say forget the moon. DiveHeart can help children, adults, and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. Back to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, politics in Hawaii series. Once again, I'm your host, Carl Campania. In the previous segment, right before the break, we were talking about the congressional district number six and the debate that happened yesterday between John Ossoff and Karen Handel. Where Ossoff says he believes in a living wage, Handel says she does not believe in a living wage and that she believes that the businesses, the small businesses in particular, she points out, should be able to not be burdened by an increased wage so that they can actually continue to do their work of creating jobs. Now, I'm not too sure how that happens, because the only problem with her argument is that after a year of $12.50 per hour minimum wage in Seattle, which is, by the way, set to increase to $15 per hour next year, retail prices have not gone up and the workers earning more money, so they have more buying power, which they then use in the market by spending more money and driving more revenues for everyone. That's how the economy is supposed to work. So right there, we have example of how the Republican conservative position is we need lower taxes, especially corporate taxes and on small businesses. We need lower regulations, but you know what? There has been no instance, and in fact, we have a case study from Seattle now and from a few other locations, by the way, a few other states, where an increase in that minimum wage has not affected prices like they say it was going to be, it doesn't affect it at all. In fact, here's the truth, when you go back to the 50s and 60s, 1950s and 1960s, there was an economic boom back then. Part of the reason there was an economic boom is the corporate tax rates were higher. In fact, at one point, they were like 90%, that's fairly ridiculous, I think, actually, but they were much higher. Well, as a result of that, what happened was all of those corporations, in order to pay the least amount of taxes possible, found other ways of spending that money. They would reinvest that money in their business. It's this reinvestment in their businesses that actually created more jobs, that created deficiencies, that created opportunity for more jobs and for prices to become lower. That was one of the key pieces at the center of that boom. But ever since then, the conversation has been, from the conservative side, taxes are too high, taxes are too high. Well, okay, yeah, taxes are high, especially here in Hawaii, taxes are very high. Or cost of living, I should say, is high, taxes are just a part of that. Okay, but if we just lower taxes, and if we lower regulations, and if we lower minimum wage, what are we doing? How are we actually creating an opportunity for anybody to be able to rise up? So I have a question that I actually wrote down just before. I said, okay, how do Trump, the administration, and the GOP expect people to get by without education, without healthcare, and without a living wage? The only answer I can come up with is, I guess they expect us all to serve them. They expect everyone who cannot afford healthcare, or cannot afford a quality education, to just be a servant to them. Maybe that's what their expectations are, because they don't believe that you deserve healthcare. They believe you need to have a good job with benefits in order to get healthcare. No one else deserves it. They don't believe now we've got devos that's in education. Education is a whole other thing that is frightening. We have Betsy DeVos, who is also one of the, if not the most unqualified person to ever hold a position of this level, who wants to completely overhaul and change our current educational system. Now, some changes are good, and maybe an overhaul to a certain extent can be good, but not what she's proposing. What she's proposing would eliminate the Child Nutrition Program. What she's proposing would eliminate after-school programs, eliminate preschool programs. All that would do would make it harder for parents. I'm a parent. I'm a parent of four children. I love all four of them, and I do everything I can for them. Every morning I drive them all to four different schools. Most of them public, one of them private. But we drive them, we do everything we can to take care of them. But if you start taking away the preschool and the daycare, and if you start taking away the public school options and taking away the after-school programs and just not make those available, or have it be something that becomes so unaffordable, how is that going to impact my job? How is that going to impact my wife's job? Wouldn't that then force us to have maybe one of us to not work or to only work part-time, which means we wouldn't be able to afford the lifestyle that we're currently living, which means, okay, we'll have to downgrade into a small apartment, perhaps, and have all of us live in a three-room apartment, just so that we can afford to live? Or would that be suggesting that, well, we move to a more reasonable location, so why we move, we leave Hawaii? My wife is native Hawaiian. My kids are native Hawaiian. Why should there be an elimination of all of these programs that will force us to have to find somewhere else to live, whether we can afford to move it out of that point? Because it's too expensive. And we're just one example. There are many, many families that aren't even doing as well as my family is, and they need help. My wife and I have been foster parents for five years. We have seen these kids come through. We have seen so many kids, some of them living in parks, for a year or more before they get picked up and put into the system because their parents are neglecting them, their parents are on drugs or some other condition. And they come to our house and they spend time with us. And our current DHS system does whatever they can to reunify these kids with these parents as quickly as possible. I say at all costs, because sometimes those kids end up right back in the system, because the parents haven't sufficiently prepared. But if those programs go away, if they take all of these social programs away, because we don't deserve to have them unless we have good jobs, if they all go away, what are we left with? What is everyone left with? If they all go away? We're all left with trying to figure out how to juggle, how to, you know, we're down to one car, we're down to no cars. Now we have to get on a bus together and we have to get everybody to school on buses. What exactly are they expecting the people of the United States of America to do? Now again, remember earlier in the previous segment I said that China is the number two in GDP to the United States, which is number one. We are the wealthiest country in the world. And yet, we have millions of people living a subsistence living, living paycheck to paycheck or less, working not 40 hours, working 60 hours, working 80 hours, which means they're not seeing their kids if they're working that many hours. And they're still having a hard time making ends meet. And the answer to that is to have no minimum wage, to have no health care coverage, to remove the nutrition and food program from our schools. Some of these kids only eat breakfast and only eat lunch because they go to school. Let me say that again. Some of these kids in this state of Hawaii and in many other states, if not all other states. Some of these kids only eat breakfast and only eat lunch because they're in school. And if you take that away, then they'll be going to school on an empty stomach and they'll have an empty stomach throughout the entire school day, which means they're not going to be able to learn very well, which means they're going to have a problem getting good grades, which means advancing, which means being able to get themselves up out. The Republicans like to talk about picking yourself up by your bootstraps. Make it on your own. Fight through the challenges. Yes, we're all fighting through the challenges. We're all doing everything we can to try to get over that hump. But every time you make that hump larger, every time you remove a program, every time you make it more expensive and more challenging or put more barriers in our way, it makes it harder and harder and harder. It's like you keep moving the goalposts further and further away. What is it that you expect the American people to do? And why is it that the Trump administration, Trump, his administration, and the GOP are continuing to push these agendas that take money away from those who don't have it already and give it to the wealthy because of this trickle-down economics theory, which has never worked. We've been living in this trickle-down economic theory for 35 years. It doesn't work, but it has been shown to work the other way around. When we make the middle class larger, when we provide more spending money for the middle class, then the economy works. That's the direction we need to go. So thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movershakers and Reformers. This is Politics in Hawaii's, but the Trump Dump edition. Thank you for joining us again. We will see you next week. And I guess keep working. Mahalo.