 Aloha. Thanks for considering the views expressed in this ThinkTech commentary, which is about an extraordinary interview of Mona Charan. The interview was done on PBS Frontline and can be found on YouTube. Just go to youtube.com and search for Mona Charan, Frontline PBS, Lies, Politics, and Democracy, and you can find it and take a look. Mona Charan is a political conservative. She served in the Reagan White House. She is an outspoken, award-winning columnist, journalist, radio and TV panelist and political commentator. She has written a number of best-selling books on political and foreign policy issues. Interesting that the PBS Frontline interview tracks on things we have often discussed in our Trump Week Talk Show, on the rule of law in the new abnormal, it's time for responsible change, and on our American issues take one and take two shows, and validates many comments made on these shows. The comments of Mona Charan resonate on many things we have raised and concluded in our ThinkTech Talk Shows on Trump's machinations and destructive effects on the country, and should serve as a warning about allowing him to hold office again. Charan is a highly articulate, candid and well-informed commentator who cuts right to the chase and tells you in no uncertain terms what has happened as to allow Trump to become president, corrupt the government and divide the country. In this no-holds-barred interview, she connects so many dots that haven't been connected. We haven't yet figured out exactly how Trump could grow his power, and how he could unhinge so many people against their better judgment. She helps us do that. From her, we learn how Trump increasingly corrupted so many public officials, how he got so much coverage of his lies in the media, and how he damaged our relations with our long-standing allies and sucked up to brutal autocrats. Scariest of all, she covers how Trump brazenly undermined our democracy and the liberal world order, how profound that damage has been and the very likely possibility that we may not be able to repair it in the years to come. Her comments in the interview were thoughtful, well-founded and straightforward. They were based on her experience in government and in observing and commenting on what has happened in government, making her conclusions all the more authoritative and persuasive. It seems clear from the discussion that the country is vulnerable and our democracy is fragile, and there are loopholes and flaws in our constitution and system of laws and protections that unprincipled people like Trump can take advantage of and use against us. Suffice it to say that it's important so us to understand how Trump turned the Republican Party inside out, how right-thinking officials and others had multiple inflection points at which they could have stood up to him and stopped him, but they squandered those opportunities. Charin, an astute political observer, identifies a number of those inflection points. She helps us understand why the people around Trump become complicit, write down to the insurrection and the incredible nonreaction of the Senate in the second impeachment. She points out how Trump also frequently shot himself in the foot, and that were it not for his gaffes he might have won in 2020 and for that matter in 2024. It's actually quite terrifying to listen to her recount these possibilities. She also points out that had Trump been impeached and removed in the first impeachment, the country would have been spared from the indignities and agonies that have followed, and the threat that he or his acolytes might still be elected to high office. She makes it clear that the Republican Party, and especially Mitch McConnell, should be blamed and shamed for supporting Trump in 2016, for enabling him during his presidency, and for failing to take any action to control him when they had so many chances to do so. She points out that McConnell's view was that it was the responsibility of the Democrats to get rid of Trump, even though the Republicans could have and should have done that. She reminds us that the Republicans have never accepted responsibility for Trump or what has happened with Trump in office, even now. Beyond that, Charin says the Republican Party has blackened its name forever, and given what Trump has done, and the damage he has done to the country and the confidence of the people and government, the Republican Party should not be supported again. She says Trump and his acolytes, for their own purposes, intentionally undermined the trust of the public in our elections. She explains that if the public does not have confidence in the elections, that inevitably invites decisions by violence and thus the end of democracy. She says Trump has bequeathed to us a democracy that is damaged and wobbly, and that it will be a great challenge to restore public confidence in our democratic system. She did not mince her words on this or anything else. In short, you really have to watch this extraordinary interview with Mona Charin for yourself. You have to hear her views of what has happened and what is likely to happen now. You may never hear it analyzed and presented so well. Thanks so much for considering the views expressed in this ThinkTech commentary. Aloha.