 It's 11 o'clock, it's December the 15th, 2021. Welcome to What Now America? I'm Tim Appichell, your host. Today's title is Build Back Better Bill has taken a turn for the worst. And with me to discuss this topic, the social infrastructure bill is Jay Piedale, Winston Welch, and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning, everyone. Jay, you know, this bill has gone through, like all bills, even the Affordable Care Act or the physical infrastructure bill, you know, they go through their twists and turns, you know, it's on again, it's off again, oh, it's in dire shape, oh, it looks like things are clear sailing. And you know, that's the nature of legislation in the federal government. But this one really has been through its twists and turns and most recently reports are that President Biden's discussions with Joe Manchin and getting his support on the Build Back Better Act is in dire shape. One of the reasons that Joe Manchin is hesitant, he didn't want to go past 1.75 after you add on long-term effects of this bill that includes the child credit, the child tax credit and the Affordable Care Act provisions. The CBO has scored this at close to $3 trillion, which Joe Manchin is certainly balking at. So let me ask you this question, how important is it for Joe Biden that this Build Back Better Act gets approved and passed in the Senate and becomes law? And second part of the question is, to what degree, even if Joe Manchin agrees to sign on to the bill in the Senate, what's gonna happen to it with the progressives in the House of Representatives? No, let me throw a first question in as to why I think it's gonna pass. And the answer is it may not, it may languish. We're at the end of the year, effectively. And the Republicans still oppose it. There's a certain amount of, what do you wanna call it, resistance out there based on all this discussion with Manchin about how it's gonna cost too much. And there's a question of credibility, a credibility for Biden and credibility for the progressives now that it has been discovered by one of the agencies that reviewed the bill that it was actually gonna cost much more than Biden said it was gonna cost. This suggests disingenuity, disingenuity on Biden's part and his administration, which would be a horrendous mistake because the most important thing he has is trust and confidence and this may cost him in terms of that trust and confidence. The other thing is I would say this bill is different from every other bill that he's been involved with because it's so much more money, so much more delay, so much more contention. So this one may not make it and that leaves him with the problem of whether to sign the $1.2 trillion bill, which he said he was holding up on until he had his BBB ready. If his BBB doesn't get ready, what is he gonna do? And if he signs it anyway, which I think he should and will anyway, he's going to lose more credibility. He's gonna be, look very, very weak that he had to back, walk back all of his assurances and the architecture of what he wanted to do, linking the two bills. So I think he's in trouble over this. Manchin is doing predictably what Manchin does. It's not a surprise, although I question his motives. And of course the progressives, they don't look so good, but they're not gonna like this at all if they lose what they've been fighting for for the past, what, 90 days. So we're not in a good place. What did you call it in the title? Build back, better build, just got worse. I would say it just got much worse. And the Biden administration is in deep kimchi. Yes. Good point. What happens to Joe Biden if this doesn't pass? What does this do for his further eroding ratings and potentially the 2020-22 midterms? This is a big promise he's put out there before the American public. And to a fellow progressive Democrats as well. Well, what have you done for me today? Kind of analysis. Well, what he's done before, which you could give him credit for is history. And what is on the table now is what is important. And I think if you judge him and the country will judge him on the build back better ability, he ain't gonna look so good. It's been the cornerstone of his legislative initiative, the cornerstone of his promise for the social safety net, for the future of the country, for recovery of the country. And if it fails, and it has many indications that it might fail, then his presidency has been undermined. And he's done it himself in many ways. His presidency is sort of on the rocks. And that means that when it comes time for the Democrats to try to win in 2022, they have a dissimpediment, serious impediment that the Democrats, you know, people can say Democrats can't get it done. And when he, if he tries to run for president in 2024, same thing, they're gonna say, poor old Joe, he can't get things done. So I think this is a crisis moment for his administration, not his political future. All right, thank you, Jay. Winston, you know, not only is the amount an issue with Joe Manchin on his willing to sign off, sign on to this bill in the Senate, but also now he's citing the 6.8% inflation and that arguing that all this money that's gonna be put back in the pocket of Americans, particularly families that have kids because of the child tax credit amount, that this is gonna add further inflationary pressures on the economy, because there's gonna be much more money in households and that presumably that extra money will be used for consumer spending, adding more pressure. Does he have a point in that? President Biden says, no, it's just the opposite. What's your opinion on whether or not Build Back Better Act is inflationary or not? You'd see when it all came out, but honestly, we are having serious, serious. It's not serious. We're not in Germany in the 30s. It's not hyperinflation. There's higher inflation. Winston, you saw the news this morning, but the Fed is gonna raise rates through the year and a number of increases. Yeah, it'll cool it down a little bit. They have a target rate. Honestly, we've got pretty stable monetary policy in this country. And at the end of the day, who cares? Who cares if inflation is a little bit higher as long as wages and salaries are keeping up with that? This is a byproduct of just sort of this. It's really incredible how we've come out of this whole COVID shutdown economic disaster reasonably intact. So on the other hand, Joe Biden needs to placate Joe Manchin. That's it. Whatever little stumbling blocks he comes up with, whether it's 6.8% inflation, he would have said it if it was 5.2 or 3.8. It doesn't really matter. There's whatever it is that Joe Manchin's stumbling on, he needs to say, what is it you need? What is the sales point that you need to take home to sell this thing? Or are you just obstructing it? So on the other hand, I'm not sure that said it. Joe Manchin doesn't want the tax credit for children. He wants that out, even though he hasn't fully admitted it, he has real issues with it. And of course, that's a cornerstone of what the progressives want. They want that money into those family households. You know what, if that's gonna keep him up at night and prevent the sinks and going, then get rid of it. He's got, they got about a reality here. And if they can pass something, don't let the, what is, don't let it perfectly be the enemy of good or whatever the saying is. Let's get something passed that we can get passed. In the olden days, we didn't have childcare credits. This is a new idea. The progressives don't have anywhere to go in this. The alternative is nothing. As much as they want to move forward on these issues, America may not be ready to move forward on them. Even if they're the best sinks and sliced bread. These are new ideas. I mean, people getting direct funding for their kids and subsidizing that, it does make things a lot easier. So would it make it for adult care, you know? And for folks that need all the unpaid labor that mostly women do, taking care of their parents and in-laws. So we've haven't had this in America before. It's a new idea. Let's not sink this whole thing if that's what Joe Manchin needs, give Joe Manchin what he needs and move forward. And I would say that actually, Joe Biden's biggest accomplishment is just being Joe Biden right now. No one is clamoring in this country for this build back better stuff. The average man on the street or lady on the street doesn't even know what this is, what's in it, what it's about. They don't care as long as there's food in the stores, they have their job. Things are going well. All right, let me hit that one point real quick before I go on to Cynthia. And that is, if they don't care, what's the benefit to the Democratic Party to get this thing passed? I mean, obviously they need some victories before they go into midterm 2022. If this is nothing on their radar screen, other than just families, isn't there something a little bit for everybody in this bill? Let me add one point to Tim's, and that is if the bill doesn't pass, you can bet that GOP will attack Biden from Kingdom come. Yeah, for what? For not increasing the deficit and not- For being weak and not following through on his own initiative. Yeah, well, the thing is what Joe Biden has done is he's just been calm and saved our nation from absolute chaos. That is what he's contributing to right now. People, I don't know that they're really worried about the bill back better as just having a stable reinforcing government. And part of that is normal government is passing bills certainly, but go to the chaos we were in two years ago. It's a market difference. That's what Joe Biden is doing right now, this slow and steady. It's not- Okay. Yeah, Winston, point and, but people have short-term memories. That's the problem. Cynthia, I saw you shake your head in the negative when Winston was talking about basically finding out what Joe Antion want to sign onto this bill and placate him. Did I perceive that incorrectly that you were shaking your head no at that point? You perceived me correctly. I don't want to take her to Joe Manchin and don't forget that Kristen Sinema's in the background, she's right behind him and we don't even know what she wants. So this is the thing that makes me angry, angrier I should say, with Joe Manchin. And that is that he agreed. He sat down with Biden and gave his word that he was gonna go forward with this and vote for it. Go ahead and pass that first infrastructure, that bipartisan infrastructure and don't worry, I give you my word, I will sign for this. And so the progressive said, okay, we're gonna trust Joe Manchin. We're gonna go forward with the other bill. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. It wasn't Joe Manchin. That was a promise from Joe Manchin to President Biden. It was President Biden that said, trust me on this, I've got Joe's vote. Trust me, pass the infrastructure, the physical infrastructure bill and we'll get the other one too. But he said, pass it first. Trust me on this. What happens to Joe Biden's credibility and progressives if this thing- That's where I was going with that. And so here, that's I think where he's gonna run into some trouble with Congress is that he made that promise. But it wasn't necessarily just his promise. It was Joe Manchin's promise to Biden or he wouldn't have said it. So I think it's still the responsibility falls back to Joe Manchin. I don't think they should spend one more minute on this bill. I think they ought to, and there's an article, a really good article in Business Insider. And the title is, Senate Democrats May Pull a Switcheroo. I hope they do. To Plunt Biden's being submitted into 2022 in favor of a last ditch push for voting rights legislation. I think all business should stop cold and nothing should be done. Nothing should be talked about. If we don't have voting rights, who cares if this legislation goes through? Who cares if Joe Biden looks good or bad? If we don't have a stop on the state legislatures that are getting more and more and more in place and more entrenched that can change what the votes are when they come in. Now, if... Well, there may be a lot of people that agree with that position. If this doesn't get done before Christmas, about Christmas is 10 days away and before the legislators go home. And so you may have a good point in that. And I think maybe a lot of people will agree that they gave it their shot. They didn't get it done. Now, focus the rest of your time on the voting rights bills. I know that Manchin is on board for one of those bills. So, I mean, if we've already got him on board, I say, why aren't we going forward with that? And so just pump that down the road. Who cares? It's too much of a... Haven't there been too many promises made though to those families in the suburbs and wherever that you're gonna get your child credit and we're gonna take care of you and we're gonna put... We're gonna make you back better. We're gonna build back better from the pandemic. Hasn't the promises been laid out? And what happens when that doesn't happen? They're just making it delayed while they work on Manchin and get everything straight. That's what I think. So, I don't think the people are gonna care. I really don't. And I think if they get out there and they push how important voting rights is. And I disagree with Jay, as far as Biden being on the ropes, his presidency being on the ropes. I don't know as I agree with that. I think that the media is really sort of demonizing the guy and I don't quite understand why. Instead of touting all the things that he has done, right, the infrastructure, the American rescue plan, things like that are big and saved a lot of households for a long time. Granted that tax credit, they got their last 300 per child this month, right? And they're not gonna get one next month. So they might start feeling it next month. But right now, before Christmas, they should stop all business and only do voting. At least that's my opinion. Well, that's why we have you on. Thank you, Cynthia. Hey, you know, I wanna switch gears here. I wanna go to what's going on with the January 6th committee and specifically what's come out about Mark Meadows, the chief of staff for Donald Trump. Jay, going to you, you know, Mark Meadows said I'm gonna cooperate with the committee. And then he says, nope, I'm not going to. What do you think happened? In light of all the text messages that have been reported on the last two days that make him look very, very bad and it makes him look like he's very much entwined in the pre-planning or some of the, it was indicated that he somehow was running the show or in conjunction with others, running the show as January 6th invasion took place of the Capitol. Why do you think he reversed gears on cooperating with the committee? He got a text message from Trump. That's why he's operating under Trump's instructions. That's Trump's, you know, signal approach, deny, say no, that's why he's doing it. And it's doesn't, doesn't fall into state at all. Your comment there, you know, in his book, remember he threw Trump under the bus about the possibility of him spreading COVID a week earlier to 50 and all those, well, a bunch of people. And then Trump said, false news and Mark Middles said, I agree. Well, there's another possibility. And that is, you know, he's made a legal analysis with his lawyers and decided that it really doesn't work for him to go and testify. And it's all enshrouded in the fifth amendment question whether he would take the fifth if he testified. I believe there's enough information in there to prosecute him without his testimony. Those documents and the testimony of others which they're getting may make a pretty good case against Meadows in which case, how can he help himself by taking the fifth? Not at all. So he may have decided, you know, looking at it from the point of view of the committee, looking at it through the committee's eyes, looking at it through Merrick Garland's eyes, you know, that he can't win by appearing. He'd rather take his chances on a criminal contempt than appearing. He's in trouble because as this is unfolding, it does look like, you know, insurrection of course, it looks like conspiracy of course, and he's in the middle of that conspiracy. It looks like old fashioned treason is what it looks like. That's pretty serious. So I think he's skating around on those issues and he's made a calculated legal decision that it's better for him not to appear and take the fifth, you know, then to appear, take the fifth, be prosecuted anyway. I think he will be prosecuted whether he appears or not. Right, and I will take that point to Winston. Winston, if he does nothing, he will most likely, like Bannon, be recommended for criminal prosecution for contempt of Congress. You think that occurs or does he just switch gears again and goes back to the committee and says, okay, I'll cooperate? I agree with Jay. There's no benefit for him, except being a real American to say, this is what happened, this was my part in it. I was wrong and exposing that. Do we think that there's that level of self-reflection or ability? No, it's not gonna happen. As I've said before, they just need to keep subpoenaing all these records, all these texts. Didn't he have a burner phone that he threw away and went somewhere? But I think that probably somewhere in the Googleverse or AT&Tverse, they keep all of that stuff for about a year or two, just in case stuff does come up. Maybe they keep it forever in some server in Utah. They're gonna find the information. I think the last that I heard was that there was the challenge of this, supposed executive privilege that was denied by the district of court in Washington, the federal district court, if I'm remembering correctly. So there will be the challenges Supreme Court. But I'm imagining that they're gonna come down and say, Congress does have a unique and important role in investigating its very potential overthrow during that January 6th insurrection. And so they do have the need to have these records. There is no executive privilege here. And because- If there was executive privilege, if there was executive privilege, didn't he relinquish that when he appeared on Fox News and gave countless interviews? And didn't he relinquish that in the publication of his book? Right, Tim, that's a very good point. When I listened to the Fox, rather the MSNBC on this one word legally is on the screen in neon and it's waiver. If he had a privilege, he waived it. He gave him all the documents. He made public statements in every which way, published the book. He can't claim privilege after he waives the privilege. And also we can't go by what he wrote in his book. I mean, that's nice that he talked about the Donald being the super spreader and all of that. But what's real is in the texts and the emails. And somewhere, someone down the line has had a copy of those and put in a flash drive and or send them to himself or herself and kept those. And those are going to come out. It's just like the little old lady and then Watergate. And they said, what's your job? She said, oh, I make the recordings. The recordings of what? Oh, all the secret recordings of the president. Oh, that's an interesting job. We didn't know if you had that. There's gonna be that lady that comes forward and says, here's the emails. Here's the thread. Here it is. Mark Meadows doesn't need to do anything at this point. Hey, Winston and Tim, they may already have that, you know? I mean, it wouldn't take rocket science to subpoena the telephone company or the provider for the phone or the email or the text. They may already have it. If we were there, all four of us, we would have subpoenaed that already. That's true, but I think it is being upheld right now just shortly. But I think very soon we'll be seeing releasing this. And then of course, Tucker says that Liz Cheney's only doing this so she can be presidentate. And I was like, not not the worst thought in the world if she takes over the Republican party again, it's not gonna happen, but yeah, it's so dumb. Let's let the evidence speak for itself. They need to make all haste. We're already in December here. We're a year on to this thing. I agree with Cynthia. They need to start cracking the whip where we really need focus, which is what happened a year ago? Who laid it out? Who was guilty? How do we stop this and then voting rights so that we're not finding ourselves in the same quagmire again? Hey, Tim, can I just suggest a question for you to pose to Cynthia? Of course. How close are we to election to the time when people start voting absentee? It's not November, maybe it's October, maybe it's September. And that means it's like eight months away. And what happens now? Can this committee do a job between now and what August? I want to step on Stephanie's toes for tomorrow's show about this topic, but since you've prompted it, I guess that's what we'll do. Cynthia, Cynthia, is this stuff gonna get out? Is the report from the January 6th committee going to get out in time before the midterm elections? What's the drop dead date in your opinion that whether they have all the subpoenas satisfied from all the people they're subpoenaing, trying to get direct testimony, does it matter? Don't they already have the facts? Don't they already have the texts? And they're gonna go and do the report regardless. What's the drop dead date that the report needs to be out by? I would say March at the very latest, but they're talking about coming out with this soon. They've interviewed 300 plus witnesses that have come in voluntarily. And they have, as Winston was saying and Jay's saying too, that they already have tons of emails and text messages that they already have and they're sort of talking about that. So after the vote to refer Mark Meadows for contempt of Congress, there was a few of them that came out and spoke to the reporters outside and all of them sort of hinted that this is all gonna happen soon. That they understand the importance of this timeline that you're referring to. Now, I have a quote from Steve Schmidt that he put on Twitter that I just love this. Says, even Johnny Cochran wouldn't be able to get Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram and Brian Kilmeade out of their jam. Those emails are incontrovertible proof, the type that is seldom seen caught in the act proof, like video of a drunken burglar falling through the roof of a store proof. So I think there's a- So he's saying that Fox News is not fair and impartial. Is that what he's trying to imply? What? He's trying to imply that they're in a lot of trouble. It goes way beyond just not news and just opinion and all of that sort of stuff. This is the kind of stuff I don't even think that Rupert Murdoch can get them out of trouble because I think they have compromised themselves in ways that they showed through emails that the January 6th committee now has in their possession. Okay, all right. And I also think that we're also, they're also getting a lot of information about sitting congressmen and women. So there's more than just Trump and his little cronies in the administrative office, but I mean, an executive office, there's some in Congress and they've got some proof. So they know exactly what is happening, but they will tell us they have a lot and it's going to happen soon. So I'm gonna trust that because I know that's probably the most important thing that needs to happen. Voting rights and the January 6th committee report are the two things that absolutely have to happen before voting happens in 2022. Closing comments, oh goodness, voting rights, voting rights, voting rights. Okay. Wait, wait, one more. Voting rights. Voting rights. All right, Jay, do you have a last closing comment? Yeah, I think Cynthia is brilliant except when she disagrees with me. But on voting rights, I absolutely agree. And you know, I mean, Biden could say, look, this is a congressional matter. I've given it my best shot. Now you guys working out or don't work it out, I'm moving on to other issues I consider more important. Warnock made a brilliant speech, not as brilliant than Cynthia would have made had she been there, a brilliant speech in the Senate yesterday. What he said is if you guys can make exception on the filibuster for the purpose of funding the government, you can easily make an exception from the filibuster for voting rights, man, which is more important right now than anything else I can think of. It was really a wonderful speech and put him on the map, maybe for future president. I'm not sure where he fits against Liz Cheney, but he's definitely a large figure after that speech especially. So I think we have to focus on that. I totally agree. And I think as Cynthia says, I agree with her also that the next order of business is making sure this committee comes out right and comes out soon. Alrighty, thank you, Jay. Winston, you get the final word and final comment. Just a couple simple points. Cynthia mentioned Johnny Cochran I saw today in the Convalueda case, you remember OJ, his famous client just got out of prison. He was found not guilty in one court, but then found guilty in a $37 million fine in civil court. So these things aren't always clear and cut and dried of how they appear on the surface. And it's not to say that people will be ever brought to justice. That said, the country is still sick. We faced a life-threatening moment. Less than a year ago, Dr. Biden is taking care of us while we recuperate. He needs space and time to do that, but just his calm reassuring presence coming in the room and knowing that a sane stable man is in charge of your care. Let's me sleep at night and all God's speed to him and our for our great nation to recover its health, its sanity and its standing and its ethical moral philosophical foundations that has made it a great country and will continue to do so with any luck and hard work on the part of all of us. Alrighty, thank you Winston for your wise words. That's all we have for today's show. Join us next week, but before I sign off, I do want to thank Jay Fidel, Cynthia Lee Sinclair and Winston Welch. Thank you for joining us for What Now America. Again, next Wednesday, 11 o'clock. And until then, I'm Tim Apachele, your host, Aloha.