 I'm Tim Apachele, your host. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. That can mean only one thing. Rediscovering America, a new show title, but still talking about Donald Trump, unfortunately, because that's just where we're at in this news cycle. This is crazy times in America. And although we are trying to focus in on what Joe Biden is going to do and how he's trying to transition into his new administration, we're unable to do that. And why is that? Well, because we are still caught in the gravitational forces of Donald Trump. And just to mention a few items here this week, we have the fact that Donald Trump has terminated the cyber security director, Chris Kreb, for doing his job to keep the election free of a Russian interference and potential hacking. So how does he get rewarded? It's a tweet termination. That's what happens. Termination by Donald Trump's tweets. We have the two GOP of Michigan, who were the vote on the vote board. And they refused to certify the election and then got so much flack from the citizens of Michigan and Detroit specifically that they had to backtrack and certify the election results. We have Rudolph Giuliani, named as the head counsel, to take Donald Trump's flag of non-defeat into the court systems. Giuliani's being laughed out of court, literally. So we're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about a whole host of other ideas and other topics. And I'd like to go right to our guests and introduce Jay Fidel, Stephanie Dalton, Cynthia Lee Sinclair, and Winston Welch. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to Rediscover America. So Jay, everyone's laughing and I don't mind. I'm laughing because what do you mean rediscover? We haven't actually rediscovered it yet. We're still stuck in a time warp. Point well taken. Absolutely well taken. So Jay, while I have you on, so Donald Trump tweets this week that he won. But it was a rigged election. He, meaning Joe Biden, he won. He admits it. And then he realizes what, as this has been pointed out in other news media, that he admitted the loss of the election. He 90 minutes later says, oh, no, I didn't. I didn't do that. And then the next day he caps, in all caps, I won the election. And the next day after that, in small letters, I won the election. When does this mission gas end? When does this stop? Not yet. It's been, what, two weeks since election day. And he's still as crazy a lunatic as he was before. I mean, what did we expect? Here's a man who can't get his eye on the truth. He doesn't know the truth. And he lies and he believes his own lies. So fact is, he's lying to himself now. And there's every indication he's gonna continue to lie. And what's remarkable, and this is the most remarkable thing of all is that half the country believes his lies. It persists. You know, I am reminded actually of a law case I had when I was in the military. My brother and I were actually a part of a team, a defense team. And there was a particular commanding officer who insisted on prosecuting this person, and he shouldn't have. So every day, every day, we made a motion to let my people go. And he didn't rule on the motions, but he received the motions. And everybody else in the room got copies of the motions. And it went on for like two weeks. And it had a tremendous effect. And ultimately, he exceeded and let the defendant go. So I think that should happen here. It's been two weeks. Somebody every day should make a big stink and put the flag up about how it's yet another day, another day of madness. That's what we have here. It's not a surprise and it's gonna continue. Well, is it really about the madness of Donald Trump and his ego and his five-year-old-like temper tantrums, his unwillingness to accept the loss? Or is this more maniacal? And it's a fundraising technique to get the GOP followers, the Trumplicans, to donate money to, quote-unquote, stop the steal, which is Roger Stone's profit-raising technique, his program. Is it all about getting money and paying down the campaign debt? Or is it really just Donald Trump can't accept the loss? I think paying down the campaign debt is a side effect. I think the primary thing is he can't accept the loss. He's a sick puppy. And actually, as my wife asked me this morning, where is the 25th Amendment when we need it? And the answer is, yeah, where is it? Well, you gotta have the vice president to initiate proceedings. You gotta have the cabinet who Trump pointed and not really qualified to say something about it. So the 25th Amendment, which was really appropriate at this point, it's not in play and that's really, really too bad. The only issue- The 20th Amendment with only 60 days left to go? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do, Tim? He's doing crazier things. He's suggesting an attack on Iran. How about getting us in a war in the next 60 days? How about selling environmental resources in Alaska? How about all these bizarre things he's doing? He's a busy, busy boy. The only way to stop him is to start a transition and focus on the things we should focus on. And I think that Biden can only tolerate it for so long. After a while, he's gotta take the action, he's gotta take. When that is a week, maybe another week after that, he's gotta go to court. He's gotta approach a federal judge. He's gotta get an injunction. He's gotta put this in the hands of the judiciary and hope that they do the right thing. Waiting it out on Trump is gonna take us right to inauguration day and beyond. I agree, at some point, patience is not a virtue. Thank you, Jay. Hey, Stephanie, for the Republicans that are not standing up, there's a few that have. There's a few that acknowledge that Donald Trump has lost his election, but most of them are silent. They're sitting on their hands. Fearful of intimidation and being tweeted against from Donald Trump. What damage to these senators and House representatives is going to occur down the line? Is it just a matter of history that we remember them through history or do the political careers become impacted by they're not willing to stand up for this election? I so hope it's the latter. I hope that it impacts their careers, but I'm also acutely aware now of how intensely destructive and physically threatening is their move to say anything negative or against or not in full praise of the president. So I'm moving into a tiny bit of more consideration for there at the hands of this bully, absolutely indomitable bully who can't be stopped. So all of them probably understand they may have some impact on their career trajectories. They know that they'll have hell to pay if Trump comes back at them as a result of their doing something. And somebody like Lindsey Graham is just nuts crazy and he's been shown to be in that case. We're gonna talk about Lindsey a little bit later because that really needs to be flushed out. For sure. So no, my answer is that they should not ever have another role in the Senate. We should vote them out. If we could work hard to do that, that would be good. But they are definitely gonna get whacked if they do anything anti-Trump. And in the meantime, they're putting themselves and ahead of their party and their country. Because they should- Quick question. Does it look like for the 72 million that voted for Donald Trump, do any of those voters, will they view any of this as unpatriotic behavior from those senators and House representatives that will not acknowledge this election victory for Joe Biden? I don't think so because they are so attuned to him. So aligned with him. Even today on NPR interviews with Republican strategists, it's the same line. It's the same backing of him. It's the same bad, crazy, progressive Democrats going nuts. And I just don't see that there's gonna be any change. I'm trying to, it's very hard to understand. It's very hard to integrate with the fact that these people are where they are. And that is not gonna change. Now over time, if we're looking at a long time and we can also get them, their children in schools that are impactful, we might be able to have some changes. But what are those changes? It's like Biden says, it's like Bill Maher says, it's like all of us are being coached to get ready. We've got to live with these people. We have to find our way with them. So I'm scratching my head and we can all start with our families, right? Because we've been actually working on this for a while. So we've got- That's true. That's very true. We've got to transcend it and we got to go forward because we're American and we want, back in the game, we're already back in the game, but we want to be back in the game as the leaders of the world where we were before. And we're- All right, thank you, Stephanie. Hey, Winston, cybersecurity chief, Chris Krebs was unceremoniously terminated by Donald Trump via tweet. All he did is, he did his job. That's all he did. And he made a comment that these elections were free from any kind of influence from Russia. And they were one of the best elections ever as far as threats from any foreign source or internal source. What's your opinion about how Krebs was terminated and the job that he did? And is he an American patriot? Oh, geez, you know, I mean, it's like Stephanie was saying, we're all Americans. We got to go back to this fundamental idea that he was doing his job and saying, this is the truth. And I'm sorry if you don't like it. You know what it reminds me of? What we're looking at right now. And you read about folks that are saying, oh, we just have to, he's in an emotionally fragile state. We have to, we just have to placate him a little bit longer. It's never going away. Like Jay said, it's not going away to an inauguration day till 2022 or whatever. It's not going away. Hey, Winston, let me tag on to that point right there. I've heard that comment many, many times that we have to let Donald Trump process his loss. We're not talking about a five-year-old here. He's an adult. Oh, Contrera, I think what we're exactly looking at, it reminds me of parents who are oblivious to that child. You're trying to have a meeting for whatever and people bring their screaming children and put them in the corner and say, okay kids, okay. And then those children end up screaming and throwing things and tantrums and everything. And so the adults cannot have a dialogue in the room. So it reminds me of Joe Biden is right out there trying to say, okay, we're moving forward, but you have these children screaming so loud. And then the parents saying, oh, it's okay, Johnny just didn't get his nap today or whatever. Okay, we're not doing that. You know, what we need to focus on, I think, who's next gonna go? National Security Advisor O'Brien said, now it looks like Biden is won. He's definitely gonna be tweeted out. You're gonna have other people who are saying, like the governor of Maryland. As far as Biden going to the courts, it's not gonna happen until the certification. I don't think that he should do it. I think he should just let the process play out because it is courts across the country are saying, no, there's no merit to these claims that's getting thrown out. You know, and then you have these crazy tweets of Donald Trump, I kind of almost feel for me. He tweeted one that said, there were more votes in Michigan or in Wisconsin than there were in Detroit than there is in the population. Well, there were 200 and something, 100,000 votes in Detroit and there's 800,000, 600,000 people in Detroit. So obviously he's not dealing with a full deck here. And I don't know if the 25th amendment would. Well, yeah, that goes to Jay's comment about the 25th, I guess. It's possible. But you know, we're looking at, I think some long-term damage to America's democracy about this and as Stephanie said, I think there's some real credibility to the physical threats that these people face for standing up to Donald Trump and all the Republican senators, whatever they are, they just don't wanna confront him. Now, after he's out of office, let's just see what happens and how the party reforms. But as far as I can tell, he's gonna have a strangle over this for a while and maybe, maybe over time, we real news will get out and people who voted for him can understand he lost fair and square and it's okay. And maybe he'll come back in 2024 or not, but we've chosen another leader now and we need to stand behind that. Just like we did in 2020, by 26. You know, Mitch McConnell came out and kind of not direct rebuke, but was very firm and surprisingly firm on his statement about foreign policy, particularly about withdrawing quickly out of Iraq and Afghanistan and also the threats to Iran about a potential strike against Iran in their sites. And if you heard Mitch McConnell saying, we're not gonna have that between now and the end of the year. Were you surprised by that comment? No, the military industrial state is going to, has been here, it's going to be here. Nothing's gonna change about that. We're not gonna have any surprise wars or anything despite what Donald Trump does or doesn't do. So I'm not concerned about that. I think we just have to let the adults in the room keep talking or move to another room entirely and let the kids and their whatever supervisors they have, you know, go over in that corner. But basically the damage, there is damage being done, but we need to gather together and say, we have a pandemic that is, there are no more bedspaces. A third of the Mayo Clinic workers are infected in the upper Midwest. These are the issues that we have to confront to collapsing economy. We don't have time for tantrums and good Americans of all stripes will say enough already. And that's where we're going, very. Okay, thank you, Winston. Cynthia, good morning. Good morning. So Cynthia, in the news, it was reported that Lindsey Graham contacted the Secretary of State of Georgia and in so many ways tried to imply or explicitly state that there might be an opportunity to toss some ballots out from those counties where there might have been one or two inconsistencies. The Secretary of State, a Republican, took the bold move to come out and say that he was trying to be unduly influenced by the Senator from South Carolina. Now, what is the Senator of South Carolina doing, calling the Secretary of State of Georgia? And Lindsey Graham's response was, well, I was calling the Secretary of State from Arizona and North Carolina. Well, the news, both those Secretaries of States were in front of the camera saying, he never called me. So he was debunked right there on the spot. And what's it look like for Lindsey Graham and ultimately for Donald Trump trying to election rig? I've talked about rigging, trying to throw out ballots, mail in ballots and rigging the election. Any comments about that? Well, I think that that Georgia Secretary of State gets my vote for the greatest of the week because that was a big deal for him to come out and actually report on what Lindsey Graham was trying to do. And I love that reporter that was interviewing Lindsey Graham and he says, when he says, why did you do this? You know, he said, well, because the future of the nation is at stake and the future of the country is at stake. And I thought, no, the future of the Senate maybe, but not the future of the country. So it was like, he was justifying what he did by the fact that he thinks what he did was right. And you know, I think that maybe Voltaire all those years ago was right when he said, once people believe in absurdities, they're capable of atrocities. And I really think that's true, you know? Do you think our democracy is being compromised? Absolutely. And has been for quite a long time now. In which way do you think it's being compromised? As he put thick pants, instead of actual Patriots, there's a big difference, you know? And I think one of the good things to be able to look at it with is that you look at Obama who surrounded himself with people who would argue with him, that would have differing opinions to Trump, which is the opposite extreme, who have surrounded himself with only people that will just sit in awe of him and go along with whatever he says. So these people have no minds of their own. So we know Lindsey Graham has no mind of his own. The only reason he was so good for all those years, he was best friends with John McCain, who does have a mind of his own. And so he was just flying around on John McCain's coattails. Once John McCain was gone, we got to see the real Lindsey Graham before he hooked up to being a Trump sick advance. Okay, thank you. Jay, same question to you. In what ways have our democracy been tarnished, either permanently damaged or temporarily damaged? And also in that question, what about the election process moving forward, either in January for the two Senate seats in Georgia or in the next two years, the next election? Donald, on the first question, we probably don't have enough time on the show to list all the ways that democracy has been damaged temporarily and in some ways permanently. Now, look at the Congress. They can't decide on anything. It's obvious they needed to make relief for the country, save the economy or restore the economy. They're not doing anything, Jack, nothing. And why? Because they can't get together in anything. And why? Because the Senate is in transition to its support of Trump. And why? Mitch McConnell is leading them down a path. And as long as he's there and as long as the Republican Party is in the same way, before Winston's reform, which I hope that happens, reality is that they're completely dysfunctional. The same thing with the judiciary. It's been stalked with judges who are not only conservative or ultra-conservative, but unqualified. And our system has confirmed them instantly through that same Senate. This is real serious. And the president has been ruling as a dictator. This is real serious. And the country doesn't get it. The country is undereducated and uninformed. So what we have is an electorate that doesn't work, an electoral college that doesn't work, a Congress that doesn't work, a president that doesn't work. Where do I go from there? I mean, the whole thing- Well, you mentioned Winston's reform and I agree. The system is ripe for reform. Now, the Republican Party needs to be reformed. It is off the wall. I mean, there was an article a couple of days ago about how the Republicans have stolen the flag. They come out with the pins and a million American flags behind them. They're not patriotic at all. They're just the opposite. And they claim to be patriotic standing in front of the flag. Trump claims that he's right because if you're a patriotic person standing in front of the flag, you must be right. That is so off the wall. Okay, well, okay. Let me answer the second question. Okay, go ahead. I forgot the second question. The election. How has the election been permanently tarnished? And will our election process need to be reformed moving forward in the next two years? Well, that's actually part of the first. You know, the core of democracy is a free election and a responsible, respectable transfer of power. I mean, and that really answers the first question about how our democracy has been damaged. Okay, well. Is it permanent? I don't, you know, is it awful? Yes, it's awful. It strikes at the core of our system to screw around like this about, you know, claiming you the only election that works is the one that elects me. And then making all this, you know, these false claims that the election doesn't reflect the will of the people. Incredible, incredible madness. Now whether, you know, and hopefully when Trump is gone and the Republicans are reformed or somehow off the scene, yes, we will probably be able to restore the integrity of the election process. Yes, but the question is whether someone in the future will try the same kind of thing, whether it be Republican, more likely Republican or Democratic to come and do the same playbook that he's been doing. So we really have to be careful to go back and restore it in such fashion that we can rely on it in the future. And nobody, nobody, nobody ever tries to stuff again. Good point, thank you. Stephanie, when Richard Nixon left office, there was an avalanche of new laws enacted for the things that weren't written down that Richard Nixon violated. And on the enemy's list, wiretapping, you name it. It was, it was a mess. His administration was a mess as far as illegal activity. Will we expect to see new legislation that actually tries to document and put down in writing in the form of legislation that prevents the next Donald Trump from demolishing the rule of law and trampling all over the Constitution? That's a great question. I question whether the Senate can do that. I will see with the way it turns out. But my vision of all of this is that is an image or a metaphor that Donald is like a virus, just like Corona. He came in, everybody gave him first days, good start, try your best, learn your, get your learning curve going. And then he just grew into an uncontrollable monster that we're still trying to deal with, just like Corona. So if this can happen again, we need to have some stop gaps. We need to have some things in place to give us some levers to get in the way of it again, because it's so very destructive. And of course now they're bringing up the issue of the one thing that might happen is actually that that code, Sam Nunn was on C-SPAN and he said, you know, it is true that it only is one person that pushes those nuclear buttons. And that is an issue and has always bothered him, but there are many suggestions for how it should be considered, but it should be considered because that would be Mother Earth over gonna be done with. So I think there's enough going on in our legislators heads that they may pursue some agenda that would get something in there, some framework that they could use, or those in power could share, use, and manage to control a virus that is gonna eat us all up. If you had one, you would eat us all up. At least now we're dealing with an out of control virus, and now we have them. Okay. Yeah, we've got a question, so we have the vaccine to take care of. Okay, Stephanie, thank you so much. Hey, Winston, at what point, now Jay mentioned that Joe Biden will probably need to wait for the certification of votes. If transitional maneuvers don't start taking place, he may have to go to court. When do you think Joe Biden should stand up and say enough's enough? I think, you know, there's the few countries that haven't recognized the election yet. The Mexicans, the Russians, the Brazilians, and the North Koreans are the ones that stand out. We have a process. The process says, until this is certified, now we know the answer already, and the damage is being done, but in many ways, when you have these absurd tweets going out or you have Scott Atlas calling for Michigan and Michiganders to rise up against COVID restrictions, when you have these things that are happening on a daily basis and the absurdity of it, it kind of strengthens the argument for, yeah, this has been way overdue. So I don't think Joe Biden should, I think he needs to stay course. He needs to be louder. He needs to get a lot more press release out there, because remember, he's shouting against this noise over in the corner of someone having a tantrum. And so while we just say, okay, Johnny's over there, so I'm gonna talk a little louder, and here's my graph and here's Mary. She's in the other room. She's gonna talk about this in their salad. Hey, Winston, if you're Joe Biden and you witnessed in Michigan, two election officials basically withhold their votes on certification of the vote, is that a new avenue for Donald Trump to try to take this election on a left turn? Oh boy, the lawsuits are so crazy at this point. Washington Post did a very good sort of synopsis of where we're at right now. And essentially, they're all being thrown out or they're being considered and saying, okay, you're allowed to have people in the room to count the votes, but they don't need to be within COVID infection distance. There's cameras on these things. So I think they're realizing, no, these attempts at this late date are actually a bit disconcerting, but I think people see it for what it is. And again, we have- So you don't think Donald Trump is gonna be successful in trying to hit the state legislators or election officials and work his magic on them? You don't think that's gonna happen? No, no, no, this is a done deal. I think that people are realizing we have other issues to solve. We made an error in judgment four years ago. We're moving on. And to the long-term damage, it's also a New Yorker came out with something, the long-term damage of Trump's anti-democratic lies. But I think the more important one, as Stephanie alluded to, is that CNN had a story to my family who chose Trump over me. Was it worth it? And I think we all have to look at that and say, we just need to come together again, find our basic values, move forward, strengthen our institutions, as Jade was saying. And we will come out of this. Find this nation has an incredible capacity to regenerate and to find itself and write itself. And I'm fully counting on that moving forward. Okay, thank you, Winston. We're out of time. I do wanna go around the table. If very one or two words, your last comments, please. Stephanie, go ahead to you, your last comment. He's also like a cat. He's playing with his little mouse, which is this country, I'm the election, and he's gonna just continue to work it until he can do something that's gonna yield to him what it is he wants, some way to get under him. Thank you, Stephanie. Jay, your last comments. Watch the courts. We'd better watch the courts because those cases that got thrown out can get appealed. You never know what's gonna happen here. He's not changing his mind. Ultimately, it's gonna have to be decided in court. Watch the courts. Okay, thank you, Jay. Cynthia, your last comments, please. Oh boy. I'm not so sure as it's just him. We talk a lot here about Trump, this, Trump, that, as if he's the one controlling all of it. And I think we look at it as the Republicans are the ones that are just pow-towing to him. Whereas I've been sort of looking at this in a different way recently, as in maybe it's the GOP that was behind all of this to begin with when we look at Trump as being the useful idiot for Putin. Well, maybe he's just the useful idiot for the Republican Party also. All right, that's a good point. We're gonna have to end it on that. Sorry, we've run out of time. I wanna thank everyone for coming on to Rediscover America, Jay Fidel, Winston Welch, Stephanie Dalton, and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Thank you again. We'll see you next Wednesday, 11 o'clock. I'm Tim Appagellio, I'm Tim Appagellio, your host. Aloha, everyone. I'll get it right next week.